Lawsuit: Nokia phone catches fire and burns man’s clothes

A Vallejo California man falls asleep with his Nokia cellphone in his pants pocket.  He wakes up with his clothes being on fire.  Although he is claiming loss of income etc. its not clear how severely burned he was by the phone fire.  

Complaint courtesy Courthousenews

Warner Spray delayed reporting battery fire-risk

In a complaint filed in Minnesota Federal Court, the United States Government filed suit against Warner Spray Tech that manufactures a cordless power drill that overheats and causes fires in consumers’ homes.  The complaint alleges that the company received complaints from consumers for several years before reporting them to the Consumer Product Safety Commission as required by law.

The commission allows consumers to report dangerous products on their website so are we to believe that the commission never received a complaint directly from a consumer about Warner Spray’s product?  Is the commission completely reliant on a company making a defective product to initiate a recall?  While its obviously bad and wrong for a company to fail to report a serious product defect, isn’t there a back-up plan for the agency to take action on its own?

Complaint courtesy Courthousenews

HealthToys.org: A better Xmas and beyond

I’ve mentioned before, here, about how the Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations will not take place until after this Christmas session is over so here is a place to go to now if you want to make sure you buy safe toys.

HealthyToys.org which is sponsored by the Ecology Center.

Not only do they allow you to search on toys for health and safety concerns but they make it easy for you to communicate with the government and manufacturers about the importance of making toys safer.

Toys not safe enough

Last year hazardous toys sent 80,000 children under five to the emergency room.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission has stronger protections in place BUT many of them do not take place until 2009 and a key provision has been suspended indefinitely.  And the biggest shopping season for children’s toys is still to come in 2008

Trouble in Toyland