Evenflo Big Kid Booster Seat Marketing Claims Minnesota Class Action

This is one of a number of class actions filed against Evenflo, Inc. about its Big Kid booster sear and the claims the company makes for it. The complaint makes two contentions: that the booster seat was not safe for children who weigh less than forty pounds, and that the seat’s side impact safety was not nearly as good as the company suggested.

The class for this action is all purchasers of Evenflo’s Big Kid booster sears advertised as being “side impact tested” or for use by kids weighing as little as thirty pounds, bought within Minnesota between February 20, 2014 and the present.

According to the complaint, Evenflo markets the Big Kid booster seat as being safe, “side impact tested,” and safe for children weighing thirty pounds or more.

The complaint claims, “Upon information and belief, … Evenflo’s ‘Big Kid’ Booster Seats are not safe or appropriate for children weighing less than forty pounds.”

The complaint refers to a February 2020 article in ProPublica, “Evenflo, Maker of the ‘Big Kid’ Booster Seat, Put Profits over Child Safety.” That article describes how Eric Dahle, an Evenflo safety engineer, told the company that it should stop marketing booster seats to children weighing less than forty pounds, because seats with harnesses worked better to hold their small bodies in place. However, a company marketing executive vetoed the suggestion, and the company continued to market the seat as appropriate for children weighing 30-110 pounds.

Evenflo also tagged the Big Kid booster seats as being “Side Impact Tested,” but the complaint alleges that this was also misleading.

First, no governmental standards exist for side-impact testing. Evenflo was free to design its own tests without any external standards.

Second, according to the ProPublica article, the Evenflo tests “were anything but stringent,” and “showed a child seated in its booster could be in grave danger in such a crash.” The article said that “when child-sized crash dummies seated in Big Kid boosters were subjected to the forces of a T-bone collision, they were thrown far out of their shoulder belts,” which could result in “catastrophic head, neck, and spinal injuries.”

The ProPublica article tells the story of Jillian Brown, who was seated in a Big Kid booster seat on the passenger side of a vehicle during a side-impact crash. Although her sister and mother were closer to the impact, being seated on the driver’s side of the car, Jillian suffered an “internal decapitation” and is now paralyzed from the neck down.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Booster Seat, Children/Minors, Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels