Rick Woldenberg casts a skeptical eye on the Toy Safety Certification Program (TSCP), a voluntary toy-safety program promoted by both the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Toy Industries Association that in some respects goes beyond even the requirements of the CPSIA. His contention: “the TSCP significantly favors mass market companies in an almost shameless way.”
Tagged as:
CPSC,
CPSIA,
CPSIA and toys,
small business
- Shop worker prevails in U.K.: no need to pay music royalty fees for singing while stacking shelves [BBC]
- Word arrives that Eric Turkewitz has been named a New York Super Lawyer, but he manages to control his enthusiasm [New York Personal Injury]
- In which a columnist criticizes a post-election Tweet of mine, labels me “socially liberal libertarian” [Carney, DC Examiner; Roger Simon, "The Strange Case of NY-23"]
- Plaintiff’s lawyers may bag $28 million in Wal-Mart wage/hour class actions [ABA Journal]
- Contestant’s million-dollar suit against California pageant ends abruptly after surfacing of too-racy-to-post video [TMZ; irony-fraught background at Brayton and Good As You]
- News bulletin: lawyers shouldn’t trade on inside information [Cunningham, Concur Op]
- Possession, not just wrongful use: “L.A. Halloween Silly String Ban” [Volokh]
- Video of man who runs giant soda pop store in L.A., includes his thoughts on recycling law and the way regulation often works to big businesses’ advantage against small [Boing Boing]
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
RIAA and file sharing,
small business,
United Kingdom,
wage and hour suits,
Wal-Mart
More background reading on the Draconian consumer product safety law:
- Fear of losing even more high-quality German toy suppliers [Kathy + Matt Take Milwaukee]
- Mattel will pay $13 million to 20 plaintiff’s firms
to resolve class action over toy recalls; claimed value of settlement to class (vouchers, etc.) is something like $37 million [National Law Journal, Coughlin Stoia release; earlier] Note also Rick Woldenberg’s March analysis of one recall (recall of 436,000 units premised on two cans of bad paint).
- New law “has added several new tasks [to the CPSC], many of which most charitably can be described as marginal in the overall pursuit of product safety that will divert staff and financial resources from more important safety issues.” [attorney Michael Brown, quoted at Handmade Toy Alliance Blog]
- Alarmist reporting on Boston’s WBZ affords a glimpse of
“the scary people behind the law” [Woldenberg]
- Effort to help move blogger Kevin Drum up the CPSIA learning curve [Coyote]
- “The “Resale Round-up,” launched by the CPSC, finally limits the power of these merchants of death who recklessly barter second-hand toys to unsuspecting civilians at low prices…. The only question now is how did any of us survive this long?” [David Harsanyi, Denver Post]
- Among its other effects, the statute “will boost opportunities for mass-tort suits” [Crain's Chicago Business]
- Law’s “continuing disaster for small business” illustrates
difference between crony capitalism and the real kind [James DeLong, The American, with kind words for a certain "indispensable" website that's covered the law]
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Ethel Everett, illustrator, Nursery Rhymes (1900), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.
Tagged as:
accolades,
class action settlements,
Coughlin Stoia,
CPSC,
CPSIA,
small business
Point of Law