Posts Tagged ‘ lead paint toys ’

Defective Products—Will the World be held Accountable?

January 13th, 2011. By janem

Wikileaks just got wind of a secret document from Chinese officials regarding the pending Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2010, or FMLAA. If the bill is passed, China plans to buy “Made in America” products, from toys to drywall, splatter  them with lead paint and sell these defective products to countries that trade with the US.  Why, you may ask? Because China wants to level the playing field: If the US can sue China under the FMLAA for contaminated drywall and defective toys, “foreign countries” (including Canada and the EU) can sue the US because their “Made in America” products are contaminated with lead paint.

KIDDING!  But it may have crossed the minds of unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers…

Last February, Representative Betty Sutton introduced the FMLAA following the Chinese drywall debacle, which came on the heels of other problems with imported products—from baby cribs and toys to auto brakes. This bill will take the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2009 one step further, to product litigation. It means that foreign manufacturers who ship to the US will have to hire a resident US agent, who will then have to “accept service of process on behalf of such manufacturer or producer for the purpose of all civil and regulatory actions in State and Federal Courts.” No registered agent, no importation.

On Tuesday, January 11^th, the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear two cases about the right to sue a foreign manufacturer in the U.S. court system.

In the first case, Robert Nicastro lost his four right fingers in 2001 while operating a machine used to cut metal made by McIntyre Machinery, based in the UK. The machine Nicastro was operating did not meet U.S. safety standards, but was marketed at trade shows across the US for 15 years. Nicastro brought a product liability case against the company in 2003, and McIntyre is arguing that because they are a UK company, they did not have sufficient “contacts” in New Jersey for the state’s legal system to have jurisdiction over them.

In the second case, two young boys, Matt Helms and Julian Brown were killed in a bus accident while traveling to Paris, France for a soccer tournament. The driver of the bus lost control when the Goodyear tire from the bus had its plies separate, causing the bus to rollover. The families of the boys are seeking to hold Goodyear Luxembourg, the manufacturer of the tire, accountable in the North Carolina court system.

Meanwhile, the head of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission seems to be up against a brick wall (pardon the pun) after meeting with her counterparts there about defective Chinese drywall, among other issues. Chinese drywall manufacturers have yet to come to the table for discussions. (According to the CPSC, as of Jan. 7, there were 3,770 incidents reported of defective drywall.)

Perhaps the threat of litigation under the FMLAA will get them talking.

Tags: chinese drywall, defective auto, lead paint toys
Posted in Defective Products | No Comments »