'Company Doe' in Product Safety Disclosure Case Revealed as Ergobaby
The “Company Doe” currently embroiled in a federal court case related to disclosure of a safety incident by the Consumer Product Safety Commission has revealed itself to be Ergobaby, a Los Angeles seller of infant and baby carriers. Ergobaby had challenged the publication of a report of a child’s death purportedly caused by one of its products on CPSC’s Saferproducts.gov database, arguing the report was inaccurate and shouldn’t be made public. The Maryland U.S. District Court agreed, and allowed Ergobaby to go by the pseudonym “Company Doe” during the proceeding to avoid any public link by the incident. But in April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the public has a First Amendment right to know who was litigating the case, and ordered the docket unsealed (see 14042225).
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In a statement on its website (here), Ergobaby said the death was unrelated to its product, instead being the result of the child choking on a foreign object. “We firmly believe in the facts and the court decision that our carrier was in no way responsible for the tragic incident reported in the news,” said Ergobaby CEO Margaret Hardin in a video statement. "You should know that medical experts and the court determined that the baby choked on a foreign object. It was an unfortunate and extremely sad coincidence that this tragic event occurred in an Ergobaby carrier. As a company, we grieve for the child, and our hearts go out to the family involved.”