Mattel Settles Baby Sleeper Death Suits Before Start of a Trial

Mattel Inc. and its Fisher-Price unit have settled lawsuits alleging their recalled Rock ‘n Play baby sleeper was so defectively designed that it led to the deaths of infants.

The agreement, disclosed in a Delaware court filing last week, resolves lawsuits over six death cases and four allegations the faulty design of the Rock ‘n Play product led to babies suffering flattened heads when they rolled against the product’s side, said Michael Trunk, an attorney representing victims who settled their cases. He declined to provide financial terms.

Among the cases settled was a suit filed by Ameena Brown over the death of her son, identified in court filings only as AB. Jury selection in her case was slated to start Thursday in Delaware. There are at least four other such cases pending in Delaware Superior Court.

A representative of Mattel declined to comment. Mattel acquired Fisher Price in 1993 in a deal valued at $1 billion.

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who teaches about product-liability law, called the settlement a positive step, but said “the company should have done more to ensure that this product was safe for infant use before it put it on the market in the first place.”

A Rock ‘n Play baby sleeper.

Source: US Consumer Product Safety Commission

Product Recall

Mattel started selling the Rock ‘n Play Sleeper in October 2009. Over the next 14 years, the product was tied to around 100 deaths, according to court filings in Delaware. Mattel and Fisher-Price pulled it off the market in 2019 and offered refunds for 4.7 million sleepers. It reiterated its recall in 2023.

Earlier this year, Mattel agreed to settle investors’ claims that it hid the sleeper’s risks in a $17 million deal. As part of the accord, the company agreed to make changes to the way directors and executives handle safety issues. That followed Mattel’s agreement to pay $19 million to Rock ‘n Play purchasers as part of a class-action settlement in federal court in Buffalo, New York. A judge approved that deal in March.

In Brown’s case, her lawyers alleged in their complaint that Rock ‘n Play’s inclined design forced “children to tilt their heads to one side, thereby increasing the risk of neck and head injuries, asphyxiation, suffocation, and death.”

Brown found her infant son dead in the sleeper – which she got as a second-hand gift – in 2018 after he’d rolled over on his side and pressed his face against the soft-padded side, the filing said. He’d been born prematurely the year before his demise.

“The conclusion of these cases marks an important milestone for the families as they move forward from litigation and begin a new chapter,” Trunk said in an emailed statement. He’s a partner in the Philadelphia-based law firm of Kline & Specter PC.

Fisher-Price employees warned the company in internal memos three times in 2008 and 2009 that safety research was needed before bringing the Rock ‘n Play to market, a US House of Representatives committee investigation found. The committee found no such checks were done. In response to the House’s report, Fisher-Price officials said they formed a medical council of pediatricians to focus more on the safety of their products.

Mattel officials argued in their court filings that Brown failed to use the Rock ‘n Play’s restraints when she put her son in it — despite a warning sewn on the product — and that medical examiners attributed his death to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome rather than the sleeper. Mattel also said the child’s health issues may have played a role in his death.

The Delaware case is Brown v Fisher-Price, No. N-20C-01-067, Delaware Superior Court (Wilmington).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware at jfeeley@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth, Peter Blumberg

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