Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

“The pet door is a really serious hazard”

How “safety” news gets shaped: a litigation consultant “at the request of trial lawyers … combed through hundreds of coroner’s reports and media accounts” and before long ABC had an alarming story to run. More: Check our comments, where readers have been digging up further interesting information about “PetAccessDangers.org”.

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11 Comments

  • Interesting that the “advocacy organization” that the mother started to warn us all of the dangers of pet doors http://www.petaccessdangers.org/
    has the exact same layout and font as the website for her lawyer
    http://www.productsafetyattorneys.com/index.php/psa/Product-Defect-Practice-Areas/Consumer-Product-Defects/Pet-Access-Door-Accidents
    Methinks the lawyer put up the web site and the mother wrote her impassioned plea and signed it so as to look like she started the website and the organization. Anyone with internet skills out there can prove my suspicions?

    • By C K G

  • It’s a rectangular hole with a flap. What could they possibly do to make it “safer?”

    • By Robert

  • They could pay a lawyer a lot of money. Isn’t that always the way it’s done?

    Bob

  • That “PetAccessDangers.com” website is fascinating.

    Her kid didn’t die in the pet door. He drowned in the pool. A good parent would have 1) had a fence around the pool 2) had a pool alarm 3) taught the child to swim and 4) not had a pool in a house with young children.

    • By Robert

  • CKG is correct – mom’s website is owned by . . . wait for it . . . the PI lawyers trolling for clients!

    Excerpt from domain registry:

    Domain ID:D155264523-LROR
    Domain Name:PETACCESSDANGERS.ORG
    Created On:04-Feb-2009 01:14:06 UTC
    Last Updated On:12-May-2009 13:43:32 UTC
    Expiration Date:04-Feb-2010 01:14:06 UTC
    Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-LROR)
    Status:OK
    Registrant ID:GODA-059056772
    Registrant Name:JOSEPH DIDIER
    Registrant Street1:2100 HAMPTON DR. N.
    Registrant Street2:
    Registrant Street3:
    Registrant City:ST. PETERSBURG
    Registrant State/Province:Florida

  • Simple cash-grab. Go ask Mr. Rooney about the risks of doggy doors…Ferris.

  • Disclaimer on the site’s “contact us” link:
    Remember not to include any confidential information in your submission. The use of the Internet for communications with the firm will not establish an attorney-client relationship and messages containing confidential or time-sensitive information should not be sent.

    “the firm” huh?

  • […] Update A: “The pet door is a really serious hazard!” […]

  • According to the Tampa Bay Fox webstory, the “advocacy” website was just set up earlier this week.
    http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/spring_hill_mom_launches_doggie_door_danger_website_051309

    Convenient, huh?

    Problem is that same website describes how the child went THROUGH the pool fence. Why is the pool fence manufacturer not being sued? Would it have anything to do with the fact that the PetSafe company is projected to be a billion dollar company by 2014?

    http://www.volunteertv.com/news/headlines/22063974.html

    • By Lucy

  • […] Dog Scoop, a followup on that “hazardous pet door” story we covered last week (with a hat tip to the skill of Overlawyered readers in, well, […]

  • Heh. The page coding is notably similar. Web page designers are sooo lazy!

    From petaccessdangers.org:
    <blockquote cite=”Bookmark This Page
    Contact Us“>

    And from productsafetyattorneys.com:
    <blockquote cite=”Bookmark This Page
    Contact Us“>