Defective Products Archive

Drywall Victim Insurance Protection Act: Prayer in H*ll?

November 18th, 2009. By AbiK

While we’re waiting on the Chinese drywall trials to get going in 2010, there’s no shortage of activity on the subject. Just yesterday, a federal bill was filed called the Drywall Victim Insurance Protection Act (sponsored by Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La). Now, if you’re sitting in a home sniffing the sulfuric fumes, that might sound like good news, right? A bill that would prohibit insurers from canceling or altering coverage of homes that contain Chinese drywall sounds like a nice safety net for folks wondering if they’re about to be dropped from their homeowners’ policies. Ah, but there’s a rub…

The issue is that the insurance industry isn’t regulated at the federal level; it’s regulated at the state level. So, as quoted at BradentonHerald.com (11/18/09), Michael Barry, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, stated the proposed bill “would have little or no effect” if passed.

Clearly that’s not what homeowners want to hear.

So why submit a federal bill that will, in effect, be meaningless?

Well, take the case of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. They recently felt the effects of some bad press when they told a Colorado couple with a home in Punta Gorda (with, of course, Chinese drywall) that they weren’t renewing their policy. The news hit the media airwaves bigtime and wouldn’t you know it, Citizens Property reversed the decision to not renew. Translation: the more press, the more results—or so the theory would go.

And clearly that must be the thinking shared by U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, D-Fl, who was quoted via a spokesman, Bryan Gulley, in the BradentonHerald.com article as stating, “While homeowner insurance largely is governed by state laws, it doesn’t hurt to press wherever possible, and Nelson certainly supports Rep. Melancon’s effort.”

Tags: chinese drywall
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Do Toyota Floor Mats Mask a Larger Problem for All Manufacturers?

November 4th, 2009. By Hunter West

In late August, after an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and three passengers were killed when their runaway Lexus crashed at speeds exceeding 120 mph, Toyota triggered the largest recall in its history and placed a focus on ill-fitting, or improperly-installed floor mats that could jam the accelerator pedal and hold it down. 

But then came the statement released yesterday by the US Department of Transportation (DOT)… 

“Toyota has announced a safety recall involving 3.8 million vehicles in which the accelerator pedal may become stuck at high vehicle speeds due to interference by the driver’s side floor mat, which is obviously a very dangerous situation. Toyota has written to vehicle owners stating that it has decided that a safety defect exists in their vehicles and asking owners to remove all floor mats while the company is developing a remedy. We believe consumers should follow Toyota’s recommendation to address the most immediate safety risk. However, removal of the mats is simply an interim measure, not a remedy of the underlying defect in the vehicles. NHTSA is discussing with Toyota what the appropriate vehicle remedy or remedies will be. This matter is not closed until Toyota has effectively addressed the vehicle defect by providing a suitable remedy.” 

The one sentence is telling: “…removal of the mats is simply an interim measure, not a remedy of the underlying defect in the vehicles.” 

What is the defect? The DOT won’t say, or doesn’t know. Meanwhile the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has done six separate investigations Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Automobile, Car, Floor Mats, Toyota
Posted in Defective Products | 3 Comments »

Reality TV Live from Your Baby’s Bedroom

November 3rd, 2009. By LucyC

A man in Illinois filed a lawsuit on Friday—a proposed class action—alleging that his recently purchased “Summer Day and Night Video Monitor” has broadcast capabilities he and his wife were not aware of. Oh boy… 

Wes Denkov bought the monitor for their infant son. His next door neighbors, coincidentally, had just had twins, and also have a baby monitor. One day, about six months after Wes’ son was born, his neighbors informed him that their monitor was receiving the audio and video from Wes’ baby monitor. 

Not surprisingly, the neighbor’s news set Wes’ mind racing as he realized that his wife , who would breastfeed their baby in the baby room at all hours of the day and night, could be seen and heard. Not only that, a little detective work on Wes’ part revealed that when he switched channels on his monitor he could hear and see his neighbors. Thank goodness they’re all on good terms… 

So, Wes calls the Summer Infant customer service line and is told that the device is NOT malfunctioning. And, if he wants to solve the problem, he should buy the more expensive model. (Hopefully that model doesn’t have a “record” option…) 

I couldn’t help thinking as I read this story that aside from the obvious privacy problems, what happens when you’re woken up at 3:00 in the morning—when you’re not at your most mentally alert—and you and don’t recognize the baby on the video monitor, or the person in the room with the baby? Surprise! Well, maybe that’s not a malfunction, but it could certainly cause one…

Tags: Baby Monitor
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BPA Paper Tigers: “Check The Receipts”

October 22nd, 2009. By Hunter West

As LawyersandSettlements revealed today there is a new and disturbing source of bisphenol-A (BPA). 

Move over, plastic water bottles. Enter the cash register and credit card receipt. Something we handle every day, keep in our wallets, pile on top of our desks…. 

According to John C. Warner, of the Warner Babcock Institute of Green Chemistry in Wilmington, Massachusetts BPA contained in electronic cash register and credit card receipts has been a problem for some time. 

It was about ten years ago when BPA first appeared on the radar screen, a time when Babcock was teaching green chemistry at the University of Massachusetts. His former career with Polaroid taught him a thing or two about thermal imagining papers, a subject he talked about in an interview with ScienceNews published on October 7^th. 

Manufacturers would coat a powdery layer of BPA onto one side of a piece of paper together with an invisible ink, he said. “Later, when you applied pressure or heat, they would merge together and you’d get color.” 

At the time, in the ’90s he thought little about the technology, he told ScienceNews, other than the fact he thought it was clever. However, when the health concerns about BPA began to emerge, he looked into it further—and he was in a perfect position to do so. As a professor of green chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, he had a ready gang Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: BPA, BPA receipts
Posted in Defective Products, Emerging Issues | 4 Comments »

3 Alarming Asbestos Facts

October 20th, 2009. By AbiK

Do I sound alarmist? or more aptly, alarmed? I am. I was writing an article on Asbestos and Asbestos Mesothelioma—and the more I researched the more alarmed I became. If you’re like me, asbestos mesothelioma—while indeed an awful, deadly disease—seemed to be something that only shipyard workers, miners, construction workers and veterans had to fear. Or I associated it with legal ads that start out “Have you or a loved one….” But a little research yields some pretty alarming facts about asbestos—and it’s changed my opinion about who’s really affected by asbestos exposure into “this means YOU”. 

Asbestos Alarm 1: Asbestos is in more places than you think

A little tooling around the EPA site gave me the following:

The EPA estimates that there are asbestos containing materials in most of the nation’s approximately 107,000 primary and secondary schools and 733,000 public and commercial buildings.

Damaged ACM (asbestos-containing material) is more likely to release fibers than non-damaged ACM. In a 1984 survey, EPA found that approximately 66 percent of those buildings that contained asbestos contained damaged ACM.

With three young kids sitting (right now!) in a school building that was built between 1930 and 1950, when asbestos was widely in use, those two statements above are giving me pause. I understand that asbestos removal is not always the best course of action as it can create a problem where perhaps one did not exist—however, that second statement—the one indicating that approximately 66% of buildings with asbestos contain damaged asbestos—i.e., the kind Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Asbestos, Asbestos Mesothelioma
Posted in Defective Products, Personal Injury | No Comments »