Case Overview
Defendant Evenflo Company, Inc. (“Evenflo”) claims to have a century of experience nurturing and protecting children. But as the company sought to compete with its rivals in the lucrative booster seat market (seats that eliminate harnesses and strap into a vehicle’s existing restraint system), it systematically misrepresented the safety of the Big Kid seat, claiming it was safe for children under 40 pounds and concealing the failing results of its own side-impact safety tests. Despite adhering to more stringent safety standards across the border in Canada, Evenflo marketed the unsafe Big Kid booster seat with false and misleading representations of the booster seat’s safeness to millions of unsuspecting parents and caregivers across the United States.
Booster seats are appropriate for children who have outgrown the “baby” seat, which secures a child with an internal harness and vertical straps that fit snugly over the shoulders. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests the transition from a harness seat to booster seat should occur when children “reach the maximum weight or height for that seat. Then a booster will make sure the vehicle’s lap-and-shoulder belt fit properly. The shoulder belt should fit across the middle of the chest and shoulder, not near the face or neck.”
Evenflo capitalized on the eagerness of parents to speed up the strap-in procedure. Evenflo’s packaging and labeling promoted the use of the Big Kid seat for children under 40 pounds, even though the vehicle belt would not fit safely once buckled. Evenflo also stated that the seats were side-impact tested, and that the Big Kid booster “meets or exceeds all applicable federal safety standards and Evenflo’s side-impact standards.” In fact, there was no articulated federal standard for side-impact seat safety. Rather, Evenflo invented its own tests but failed to disclose this important fact to consumers. Evenflo’s own tests were not stringent—and the “Big Kid” failed even those tests. The company’s own engineers admit that children subjected to forces evident in its side-impact crash tests would be at risk for catastrophic injury, including the neural severing known as ‘internal decapitation.’ One Evenflo project engineer admitted: “We side-impact-test our seats, but I don’t think we say that we offer any type of side-impact protection.”
