General Law

Every year, children’s products are recalled due to safety problems, including the presence of lead. Whether a part on the product comes loose when it shouldn’t, creating a choking hazard, or the toy contains hazardous materials, when a company finds that a product of theirs could potentially cause injury to children they typically recall the product. However, many children can be injured before the product is actually formally recalled.

Toy Recalls Since 2008

From 2008-2016, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a total of 453 children’s toys were recalled from the market. 172 of those recalls were in 2008 alone and 19 of those products contained lead. Although the number of recalled toys has drastically reduced in recent years, the fact remains that many toys are found to be unsuitable for children only after they are sold in stores.

Children’s Product Recalls in 2016

The above figures for toy recalls do not count children’s products that are not toys, like car seats, bottles and sippy cups, furniture, and other items designed for use by children but not for play. ABC News reports that in 2016, recalls for children’s products increased by 12% over the figures for 2015, resulting in 66.8 million units being taken off store shelves.

While some recalls are as simple as the design of a sippy cup preventing it from being cleaned properly, causing it to grow mold that could potentially result in illness, other unsafe products could cause a child’s death. For example, IKEA dressers manufactured between 2002-2016 had a fatal flaw: the dresser’s design allowed it to tip over easily, and resulted in the death of six children – all under the age of four – after the dresser fell on top of them.

How Parents Can Keep Children Safe

If you’re a parent, it’s important that you keep your eye on product recalls. Cribs, high chairs, toys, and other products can make it to market even if they are inherently dangerous. In many cases, the product’s flaws or defects are not discovered until children become injured, so it’s important to stay abreast of the latest product recalls to ensure that your children aren’t using items that could harm them.

What to Do If Your Child Was Injured By an Unsafe Product

If your child was injured or killed by a defective or unsafe product, it’s crucial that you get legal help as soon as possible. Product designers, manufacturers, and in some cases even stores, may be held responsible for allowing dangerous products to be made and sold to children. It may be possible to obtain justice for your little one and ensure the same doesn’t happen to other children through a product liability lawsuit.

At Mazow | McCullough, PC, we have the resources and skills to help you. Contact us today at 800-693-9074 for a consultation and learn more about your legal rights as the parent of an injured child.

Mazow | McCullough attorneys are currently working on a class action lawsuit against Diageo-Guinness, USA, Inc., and its parent, Diageo North America, Inc. in the U.S. District Court in Boston. The lawsuit alleges that Guinness engaged in deceptive marketing techniques, purporting that their beer heralds from Dublin, Ireland, when in reality, it is brewed in a Canadian production facility.

A feature article in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly goes into detail about the lawsuit:

Your run-of-the-mill beer drinker might not be fazed to learn Guinness comes from a modern production facility in Canada rather than a historic brewery in Dublin, Ireland. Kieran O’Hara is not one of those beer drinkers. Last month, the Swampscott resident filed a consumer class action [lawsuit].

Brought under G.L.c. 93A, §2, the suit alleges the defendants market Guinness Extra Stout “in a manner which unfairly and deceptively misleads consumers into believing that all of the Extra Stout sold in the United States is brewed, sourced, bottled and imported in/from Dublin, Ireland, when in fact certain Extra Stout sold in the United States is brewed and imported in/from Canada.”

The case appears to have some teeth at first glance. The Guinness logo used on Extra Stout packaging includes the statement: “Traditionally Brewed St. James’s Gate Dublin.” The complaint further alleges that the Guinness website proclaims that “all” Guinness sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland and North America “is brewed in Ireland at the historic St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin.”

Yet the fine print says something else.

An exhibit filed with the complaint shows the label on a Guinness bottle with an acknowledgement in small type that the beer is brewed and bottled not in Ireland but in New Brunswick, Canada. “Extra Stout’s labels do not prominently place on their labeling a representation that Extra Stout is manufactured, brewed, bottled and/or imported from Canada with sufficient conspicuousness,” the complaint alleges.

The class action further claims that O’Hara and other consumers paid a “premium price” believing that Extra Stout is brewed and bottled in, and imported from, Dublin.

In addition to compensatory and punitive damages, O’Hara’s suit seeks a disgorgement of profits, under a theory of unjust enrichment, as well as injunctive relief requiring Guinness USA and its parent to correct their marketing practices.

“If the plaintiff’s allegations are true, Guinness should not be charging that premium price,” McCullough says.

While many people may consider this type of lawsuit frivolous with little to gain, it’s important to note that these are the types of legal actions that keep advertisers honest in their marketing. Without attorneys and lawsuits to keep advertisers in check, brands can make any claims about a product that they want.

Mazow | McCullough is excited to see how the case unfolds and what the final verdict will be. Will Guinness be required to relabel their beer or change their marketing tactics in some way to put less emphasis on the notion that their beer is brewed in Ireland? Stay tuned to find out.

There has been a lot of talk on the news and social media lately around the newest Netflix mini-series “Making a Murderer.” The  story of Steven Avery, a Manitowoc County, Wisconsin man, who served 18 years in prison for the sexual assault and attempted murder, before being exonerated in 2003. Recently, local lawyers Robert Mazow and Randy Chapman sat down with The Boston Podcast and provided new takes on this popular story.

A friend of mine was called up for jury service this week. As a joke, he posted a question on Facebook on ways he could get out of jury service. Friends replied with various suggestions such as “shave half your face so the judge thinks you’re crazy,” “pretend you are sick,” and “tell the judge you are pregnant” (my friend is a man). They suggestions ranged from funny to pathetic. But the bottom line is that so many of us think that jury service is a joke and waste of time.

Probably due to my career as a prosecutor and now a trial lawyer, I’ve never been chosen to sit on a jury. While I’m sure I could be impartial and fair in either a criminal or civil trial, I think that attorneys feel I might have some “insider” knowledge or might persuade a jury to a particular verdict.

Since 1994, I’ve had the privilege of trying many, many cases in front of juries. I’ve tried criminal cases and civil cases. Small “fender bender” cases and large wrongful death cases. Cases that have lasted for half a day and ones that have taken weeks.

What I’ve taken away from each of these trials is that no matter what the kind of case, whether the outcome is someone’s liberty or is about compensation for an injury, jurors ultimately take their jobs extremely seriously. Sure, they enter the courtroom wishing that they could be anywhere else but there. They are nervous, or bored, or confused, or angry. But, from the moment that jurors take that solemn oath to be fair and impartial and to render a true verdict, I have rarely seen a juror not take that oath to heart.

Not every case has gone my way. But it is the rare time that the jurors don’t get it “right.”

The next time you get called for jury service, don’t look for the excuse to get out of it. Listen to the judge’s preliminary instructions and the questions from the lawyers. If you think you can be fair and impartial, then let the court know when you are asked.

I’ve never met a juror who didn’t feel satisfied with going through the experience.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Two Salem law firms who specialize in representing Massachusetts consumers in class action lawsuits, are collaborating in a Worcester case involving an alleged breach of security by a former employee of the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center.

Attorneys Robert E. Mazow of Mazow & McCullough, PC and John R. Yasi of Yasi & Yasi, PC, are researching all aspects of the wide and complex case which they filed on behalf of an individual who seeks to be representative of a class of persons similarly situated. The class of persons is defined as the roughly 2,400 persons whom, the hospital acknowledges, were sent written notification by the hospital in May of this year that they may have been victims of a security breach.

While the notification letter did reference that the fired employee was under investigation by authorities, further details only came to light this past week when the former employee, Katherine Benitez of Webster, was charged with multiple criminal counts involving allegations of identity fraud, larceny and conspiracy. She has pled not guilty to the charges. She is free on bail, but must wear a GPS monitor, not contact her alleged victims, surrender her passport, report to probation three times a week, and return to court for a pretrial hearing.

Meanwhile, Worcester-area police are seeking her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend, who reportedly may also be involved in the matter.

Attorneys Mazow and Yasi have been critical of the hospital’s limited response to the breach and assert that the response was a dramatically insufficient remedy under the circumstances of such an obviously serious breach. The victims’ attorneys point out that the hospital itself acknowledges that its former employee may have been inappropriately accessing and gathering patient information going back as far as 12 years. Moreover, the attorneys state that the hospital has refused to provide the victims with details about the dangers of potential medical identity theft which were detailed in a report which the lawyers’ retained privacy expert created for the benefit of their client, as well as the other victims.

Attorney Yasi states:  “On behalf of our client we have gone to great lengths to educate him about what medical identity theft is and more importantly, to provide him the tools which will allow him to determine whether he may already be a victim or conversely, to prevent him from becoming a victim. We provided this information to the hospital’s attorneys as soon as it was prepared by the expert and urged the hospital to provide a copy of the report to all of the victims whom were notified of the breach back in May. Inexplicably, the hospital has refused to provide these persons this information. Moreover, the hospital’s only notification letter did not even use the term “medical identity theft”, let alone educate the victims that the breach may have exposed them to the crime of medical identity theft.  Rather, the notification letter discussed only the possibility of the use of the information for purposes of personal identity theft and offered the victims only one year of free credit monitoring.”

The plaintiff’s attorneys contend that medical identity theft is an enormous problem throughout the country and the world. They assert it is a multibillion-dollar criminal industry wherein stolen medical identity information is used to make and collect on fraudulent insurance claims.

Yasi also states that “the statistics are staggering with respect to the amount of money which is paid out by Medicare and private health insurance companies yearly related to medical identity theft.  Moreover, a victim of medical identity theft can face severe adverse problems from a physical standpoint, not just economic damages. For example, an imposter might illegally obtain expensive prescription medication which may lead to the victim being denied necessary prescription medication. Likewise, imposter information might taint a victim’s medical record with an incorrect diagnosis or blood type, problems which could have disastrous ramifications for a victim as he seeks continuing treatment for certain illnesses.”

Accordingly, the attorneys for the plaintiff will seek to be appointed class counsel as soon as possible in an effort to educate this class of 2,400 persons that they are at a dramatically increased risk of becoming victims of not only personal identity theft, but also medical identity theft.

Yasi states “in addition to educating these persons about the problem, we will, more importantly, provide them the necessary information which will allow them to monitor their medical identity very closely at every medical encounter so as to determine whether they might already be victims, or in an effort to avoid becoming victims.”

Attorneys Mazow and Yasi state that they have requested that the hospital meet with them in an attempt to mediate a resolution to this matter which fully educates and protects the victims of the breach, but that to date the hospital has refused such a meeting.