TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – Nothing lasts forever, says the maker of popular child car seats as it fights a lawsuit complaining the items have a shelf life.
Graco filed a motion to dismiss the proposed class action case Jan. 11 in New Jersey federal court, noting a 2008 decision from an appeals court that said “every manufactured item is defective at the time of sale in the sense that it will not last forever; the flipside of this original sin is the product’s useful life.”
Matthew Schmitt said in a Nov. 16 lawsuit that the car seat he bought for his daughter was already 15% toward the end of its life when he purchased it on Aug. 31. A sticker on it said it was manufactured in March 2019.
The manual instructs users to throw the seat away 10 years after the date of its manufacture.
“Plaintiff seems to expect that all consumer products should be delivered the moment they come off the assembly line, but that is neither practical nor reasonable,” Graco’s motion says.
“In addition, Plaintiff readily acknowledges that Graco informs customers that its car seats must be discarded in seven to ten years. He makes no allegations that the car seats have not performed as intended. Nor does he make any allegations that he has had to discard or replace the car seats.
“In fact, he can safely use both products for many more years.”
Thus, Graco alleges Schmitt does not have standing to bring suit because he has not suffered an injury. The depreciation argument he makes contains “speculative, non-concrete damages,” the company argues.
“Plaintiff here has pled the mere conclusory statement that he and other putative class members ‘have suffered an ascertainable loss … in an amount to be proven at trial,’ but alleges no facts by which that supposed loss might be quantified or calculated,” the motion says.
“Any suggestion by Plaintiff that he has satisfied this requirement by alleging that he received the SlimFit Car Seat ‘depreciated of essentially 15% of its useful life’ should be rejected.”