Graco Booster Seat Class Action Lawsuits Get Green Light

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Graco Booster Seat Class Action Lawsuit Overview:

• Who: Children’s products manufacturer Graco has to face 15 class action lawsuits over its booster seats.
• Why: Plaintiffs allege the company falsely marketed the seats as being safe for children weighing 30 pounds when they are not.
• Where: The consolidated class action is nationwide.

Fifteen class action lawsuits claiming Graco misled consumers about the safety of its booster seat for children have been given the green light to be consolidated by a Georgia federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May ruled Tuesday that the company made express representations about the effectiveness of the Graco booster seats in side-impact collisions that would have influenced all of the consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Graco Booster Seat Allegedly Put Small Children At Risk

According to the consolidated claim, lead plaintiff Kellie Carder says Graco has known since 2002 that its representations about its booster seats being safe for small children are false and misleading — namely, that the booster seats do not appreciably reduce the risks associated with side-impact collisions.

“Defendant’s own testing does not show that the Booster Seats are safe in side-impact collisions, and that the Booster Seats are in fact not safe for children under forty pounds or younger than four years old—but that Defendant omitted or concealed this information from its marketing of the Booster Seats,” the claim reads. 

The company said in its marketing that the seats were safe for children weighing 30 pounds as young as 3 years of age, the Graco booster seat lawsuit alleges.

May rejected Graco’s argument that the consumers did not prove they would have bought booster seats elsewhere had it not been for the company’s marketing, saying “the court is not persuaded that plaintiffs’ allegations are insufficient as a matter of law,” Law360 reports.

May did dismiss the consumers’ call for an injunction against the company that would stop it marketing the seats as safe for side-impact collisions, saying that none of the consumers planned to buy the seats again and were therefore ineligible to seek the order.

A lawyer for one of the consumers told Law360 she could not be more pleased with the outcome.

Graco isn’t the only company facing a legal action over its booster seats. According to a class action lawsuit filed in April, baby products manufacturer Artsana encouraged parents to buy booster seats for their kids as early as possible by marketing booster seats to parents in an effort to ramp up their sales in a competitive and “tremendously lucrative” market.

Have you ever purchased a booster seat for your child? Tell us in the comments section how old your child was when you made the transition!

The plaintiffs are represented by Daniel K. Bryson, Gregory F. Coleman, Harper T. Segui, Jonathan B. Cohen, Martha A. Geer, Patrick M. Wallace and Rachel Soffin of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman PLLC; David J. Worley, James M. Evangelista and Kristi S. McGregor of Evangelista Worley LLC; Gary E. Mason of Mason Lietz & Klinger LLP; Melissa R. Emert and Gary S. Graifman of Kantrowitz Goldhamer & Graifman PC; James M. Davis IV and Patricia C. Guerra of Casey Gerry Schenk Francavilla Blatt & Penfield LLP; Mark P. Chalos, Christopher E. Coleman and Jonathan D. Selbin of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; Carl V. Malmstrom and Matthew M. Guiney of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Hertz LLC; Aaron M. Sheanin, J. Austin Hurt, Michael J. Pacelli and Stacey P. Slaughter of Robins Kaplan LLP; Samuel J. Strauss of Turke & Strauss LLP; Gayle M. Blatt of Casey Gerry Reed & Schenk; and Jonathan Shub and Kevin Laukaitis of Shub Law Firm LLC. 

The Graco Booster Seat Class Action Lawsuit is Carder, et al., v. Graco Children’s Products, Inc., Case No. 2:20-cv-00137-LMM in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Of Georgia Gainesville Division.

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