LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – Graco is fighting a class action lawsuit filed after 110,000 “Little Lounger” sleepers were recalled due to a threat of asphyxiation.
Graco and Newell Brands on June 8 filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed earlier this year, arguing that the plaintiffs haven’t alleged that anyone was actually hurt by the product.
The lawsuit, instead, claims customers were defrauded by paying for the sleepers, but Graco notes they were offered refunds. It’s the same argument the company made earlier this year in the same case before the plaintiff amended her lawsuit.
“Plaintiffs plead nothing beyond the existence of the recall that demonstrates any injury to them—they make no allegation that they ever used their Little Lounger Seat and DreamGlider, much less that the products have caused them to sustain an injury or done anything less than provide them with what they bargained for,” the motion says.
“Merely alleging a product is subject to a recall, or labeling a product as ‘unsafe,’ is insufficient to plead a viable economic injury.”
Nayonna Brezinski filed the suit Feb. 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated.
“By positioning an infant at an incline between 10 and 30 degrees, the inclined sleepers significantly increase the risk that the infant’s head will slip into a dangerous position, tilt to constrict the windpipe and/or cause the infant’s face to become pressed against the padded fabric in the lounge and block airflow, which the infant may be unable to correct,” the lawsuit claimed.
“This increases the risk of death by asphyxiation."
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other consumer groups repeatedly issued warnings about the sleeper in April 2019, the suit said.