Overlawyered » CPSIA and toys

Dear lawmakers: please fix CPSIA

Walter Olson — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:02:30 +0000

Jill Chuckas of the Handmade Toy Alliance testifies before the Senate about the Law That Stole Christmas.

Tags: CPSIA, CPSIA and Congress, CPSIA and toys

Dear lawmakers: please fix CPSIA is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“The law that stole Christmas”

Walter Olson — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 11:44:12 +0000

A nonprofit in suburban Chicago each year encourages its woodworker members “to craft and donate wooden Christmas toys to less fortunate children.” After donating upwards of 700 toys a year in the past, it will have to discontinue the program in future since it can’t afford the third-party testing required under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, sponsored by area members of Congress Bobby Rush and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). “Woodworking hobby magazines have pegged prices for third-party testing as high as $30,000 for 80 items.” Testing is particularly impractical for items made from donated/recycled wood, since each donated wood source needs to be put through separate testing. Another triumph for CPSIA! [Jenette Sturges, Sun-Times/Beacon-News]

PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGE from John Bate’s 1635 book, The Mysteryes of Nature and Art, Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: CPSIA, CPSIA and Congress, CPSIA and toys, Illinois, volunteers

“The law that stole Christmas” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

CPSIA, uncompliable

Walter Olson — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:03:48 +0000

Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason “Hit and Run” provides two snapshots of the continuing damage being done by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, including the rage-and-despair reaction of Rick Woldenberg (AmendTheCPSIA.com), who says that the new regulations “will jack up Learning Resources’ annual compliance costs to $15 million, FAR in excess of our profits. We have no Plan B — so we are trying to get a new government.” And a commenter points to the “Criticism” and (very partial) “List of Companies Whose Closure Is Linked To CPSIA” sections of the Wikipedia entry.

Related: “Not available because of the CPSIA“: wood-and-beeswax Selecta Spielzeug Rhonda dollhouse dining room, formerly imported from Germany. Why pay a whopping testing bill to clear an innocuous product that’s at best going to sell modestly on this side of the Atlantic? [EuroToyShop.com]

Tags: CPSIA, CPSIA and toys

CPSIA, uncompliable is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

CPSIA: Russian nesting dolls, paper clips, science kits

Walter Olson — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 05:29:28 +0000

The website of the Golden Cockerel import firm includes a rather elaborate warning as to why its matryoshka are not meant for the under-12 set, at least not since the enactment of the calamitous Jan-Schakowsky-backed law:

the law requires each batch of toys be tested by a 3rd party laboratory to be sure they are “toy safe.” Such tests can cost well over $1000 per nesting doll set! And sometimes, as with our museum quality one-of-a-kind dolls, a “batch” consists entirely of one doll, or only a few, making it totally unfeasible to test.

CPSIA: reserving treasured toys for strictly adult use since 2008.

More: The CPSC has just sided with purported consumer groups and against pleas from the business community in adopting a broad definition of what constitute “children’s products” under the disastrous Barbara-Boxer-backed law: for example, ordinary paper clips must go through costly separate CPSIA testing when meant for kids’ use as part of a science kit with magnets and similar items [NY Times, AP/WaPo ("Kids' science kits may take hit from safety ruling"), Commissioners Anne Northup and Nancy Nord]

Tags: Barbara Boxer, CPSC, CPSIA, CPSIA and toys, Henry Waxman, Jan Schakowsky, schools, science and scientists

CPSIA: Russian nesting dolls, paper clips, science kits is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 13 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:31:51 +0000

“Court Vacates $99,000 Fee to Counsel for Plaintiff Who Won $650″ [NJLJ]
Libel-suit target: “Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science” [Wired]
No, they weren’t “worst”: RIP injury lawyer who hyped “10 Worst Toys” list each Christmas [WSJ Law Blog]
New credit card regulations squeeze small business [John Berlau letter in Washington Post]
District attorney’s case intake desk should screen out many unjust prosecutions, but often doesn’t [Greenfield]
AGs’ campaign to drive sex pros off Craigslist has failure built in [William Saletan, Slate; LNL; Declan McCullagh]
“Nursing Home Company Settles $677 Million Lawsuit for $50 Million” [AP]
“Judge accused of sexual harassment once helped women sue” [Orlando Sentinel]

Tags: attorneys' fees, CPSIA and toys, Craigslist, harassment law, nursing homes, prosecution, United Kingdom

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Buckyballs and the vulnerable 13-year-old

Walter Olson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:13:46 +0000

Woot.com has a daily offering today (may disappear tomorrow) discussing the CPSC policy on swallowable magnets in tones of less than complete respect.

Plus: How dangerous exactly is this loose-magnet toy that CPSC saw fit to recall? [Amend The CPSIA]

Tags: CPSC, CPSIA and toys

Buckyballs and the vulnerable 13-year-old is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

USA Today on CPSIA casualties

Walter Olson — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:24:01 +0000

The newspaper profiles Randy Hertzler of Lancaster, Pa., whose small family-owned business imports European-made specialty toys and is reeling under the costs of the 2008 enactment. [via CPSC Commissioner Anne Northup]

Tags: CPSIA, CPSIA and toys

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Capsized by CPSIA

Walter Olson — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:08:14 +0000

Dallas entrepreneur Phebe Phillips tells in this speech (PDF) why she had to get out of her successful plush animal business:

Then in 2008 and 2009 the U.S. economy tanked … retail dwindled and a new toy regulation was enacted in response to the poor quality and mass quantity oversights by some really big toy companies. This new law raises the testing price for each product and in some cases, doubles or triples the costs. For some small companies, it can cost one year of total revenue just to meet the requirements of this law. The law is for any product marketed to a child age twelve and under and for any product made anywhere…even here. It has frozen many small and midsize companies leaving the companies that caused the problems in the first place as some of the only companies that can afford to stay in business. Financially, it caused me to temporarily halt my business…I changed!

Via Amend the CPSIA, which had this report on Phillips in December; earlier on CPSIA and stuffed animals here and here.

Consumer Product Safety Commission member Anne Northup has also been blogging about some of the law’s ongoing damaging effects on sellers of dolls, kids’ furniture and apparel imports.

PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGE from Honor C. Appleton, The Bad Mrs. Ginger (Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1902), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

Tags: CPSC, CPSIA, CPSIA and apparel/needle trades, CPSIA and toys, small business

Capsized by CPSIA is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“If something isn’t done to protect small businesses, handmade toys will be gone soon.”

Walter Olson — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:04:38 +0000

A Minnesota seller of imported and specialty playthings closes its doors, and its owner reflects on the ill-conceived Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. [Allison Kaplan/St. Paul Pioneer-Press, AmendTheCPSIA]

PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGE from Honor C. Appleton, The Bad Mrs. Ginger (Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1902), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

Tags: CPSIA, CPSIA and toys, Minnesota

“If something isn’t done to protect small businesses, handmade toys will be gone soon.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“The myth of the ‘common toy box’”

Walter Olson — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:06:13 +0000

Why do CPSIA’s ultra-stringent regulations apply not only to items used by kids small enough to chew on toys or buttons or combs, but also to those intended for much older kids? Because of an “urban myth” developed by consumer groups, Rick Woldenberg explains.

Tags: CPSIA, CPSIA and toys

“The myth of the ‘common toy box’” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system