Types of Defective Toys: What to Do When Dangerous Toys Cause Injury

Explore common types of defective toys and the harm they cause to children. See examples of winning child injury case verdicts and compensation awards.

While most toys are safe, some can pose a serious danger to children. Over 198,000 children are treated each year in hospital emergency rooms for toy-related injuries, including fatal injuries.¹

Most children hospitalized for toy injuries are under the age of twelve, and half of those are under the age of four.

Parents have a right to expect children’s toys to be fun, educational, and safe. Here’s where we unpack how defective toys can harm your child, and what you can do about it.

7 Types of Defective Toys and Common Injuries

The United States has federally-regulated guidelines for the manufacture and import of toys in this country.

Despite the rules, defective toys still end up harming our children. Defective toys may be identified and recalled yet remain on store shelves, or resold from consumer-to-consumer via yard sales, thrift stores, and online second-hand marketplaces.

1. Toys with Small Parts

Stuffed toys and other types of toys may have dangerous small parts, like button eyes, that are a choking hazard for small children. Some toys may contain small magnets that can lodge in or block a child’s intestines.

2. Balloons

Balloons are a leading cause of suffocation deaths in children, from chewing on an uninflated balloon or swallowing pieces of a burst balloon.

3. Pacifiers and Teethers

Defective pacifiers and teethers can present a choking hazard for babies if the parts separate, or the mouth guard isn’t large enough to prevent the entire item from fitting in a child’s mouth.

4. Riding Toys

Scooters, tricycles, and other non-motorized riding toys for young children may have handlebars, wheels, tires, or axles that fail, creating a fall hazard. Sharp edges may cause lacerations and puncture wounds.

5. Toys with Cords or Straps

Infants and toddlers are at risk of strangulation when strings, cords, or straps become wound around the neck. Cords or straps may be attached to pull toys, play guitars, dress-up costumes, and more.

6. Battery-Operated Toys

Battery-operated toys that malfunction may cause burns, or the battery may be a choking hazard if accessible to a small child. Button batteries are particularly dangerous for children.

7. Toys with Poisonous Coatings

Just about any toy can be harmful to children if it has been coated with lead paint or other toxic substances.

Case Example: Jury Awards $435,000 to Family of Poisoned Child

The Aqua Dots craft kid was designed for children to create designs by spraying beads with water. Testing revealed that the beads were coated with a substance that, if swallowed, chemically changed into the “date rape” drug gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB).

The Monje’s toddler fell ill after swallowing a bead from the Aqua Dots kit, resulting in permanent brain damage, loss of fine motor skills, and the ability to smell.

The jury found in favor of the Monjes family, awarding $58,000 for medical bills and $377,000 for pain and suffering.

Some children are severely injured while using toys through no fault of the toy. For example, small children riding tricycles in driveways or on the road have been hit by cars.

However, toys that don’t comply with federal safety standards are considered defective. Manufacturers of defective toys can be held responsible for injuries to children.

The most common injuries from toys:

  • Lacerations
  • Bruising and abrasions
  • Bone fractures
  • Burns
  • Puncture wounds
  • Strangulation
  • Choking
  • Poisoning

Nearly half of all toy-related injuries are to the affected child’s face, head and neck.

Here are some tips on how to choose safe toys for children.

What to Do When a Toy Hurts Your Child

To have a valid personal injury claim, your child’s injuries must be serious enough to require medical care. If the injuries weren’t serious enough to see a doctor, you probably don’t have a case. It’s not enough that your child sustained a minor cut or bruise, or momentarily gagged on a piece of the toy.

However, children’s products that cause even minor injuries should be reported.

Regardless of the cause of your child’s injury, such as choking on a small part or getting burned by a hot wire, if you want to take legal action, it helps to understand some common terms used by attorneys.

  • Duty of Care is the legal obligation of the toy manufacturer to avoid causing harm to children.
  • Negligence occurs when the manufacturer sells a toy that has a design or manufacturing defect, or fails to label a toy with safe age ranges and instructions for using the toy.
  • Liability means the toy manufacturer is responsible for damages resulting from the child’s injury.
  • Damages are the personal and financial losses suffered by the injured child and their family.

Damages from defective toys can include your child’s medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses you paid for things like medicine and bandages, your lost wages if you had to miss work to care for your child, and the pain and suffering your child endured.

Seek Legal Advice for Serious Injuries

If your child was seriously injured by a defective toy, talk to an attorney about the strength of your case. Most personal injury attorneys and product liability law firms offer a free consultation to victims. Products that cause serious injuries to children can be high-dollar claims.

Most states have strict rules about handling compensation for injured children under 18 years of age. The courts want to ensure any financial agreements are in the best interest of your child. Personal injury lawyers can make sure the toy company bears the administrative cost of any trusts or annuities established for an injured child.

To build a strong case against a toy manufacturer, you will have to show:

  1. The toy was defective
  2. The defect was caused by the manufacturer’s negligence in the design, manufacture, or labeling of the toy
  3. As a direct result of the manufacturer’s negligence, your child was injured
  4. Your child’s injuries resulted in verifiable damages

Gather Defective Toy Case Evidence

The more evidence you can gather about the defective product, and the circumstances and scope of your child’s injuries, the stronger your product liability claim will be.

  1. Get Immediate Medical Attention: An injured child should get immediate medical attention from their pediatrician, a hospital emergency room, or an urgent care center. Be sure to tell each medical professional who treats your child exactly how and when the accident occurred.
  2. Keep the Toy: Set aside the defective toy, as well as its original packaging and purchase receipts if you have them. Put everything in a zip-top bag or a plastic bin labeled with the date of the accident. Don’t let anyone handle the toy until you’ve talked to a product liability attorney.
  3. Take Photographs: Pictures and videos make compelling evidence. Take pictures of the dangerous toy and of your child’s injuries. Continue taking pictures of your child’s injuries throughout treatment and recovery. Images of a small child in a hospital bed or wearing bandages can have a strong impact on a jury.
  4. Get Witness Statements: Ask everyone who saw your child being injured by the defective toy to provide a written witness statement.  The witness should describe everything they saw and heard, including your child’s cries of pain from the injuries.
  5. Gather Medical Records: Gather copies of your child’s medical records and bills, receipts, copies of invoices, and other proof of payment for medical treatment.
  6. Document Lost Wages: If you lost time from work while caring for your injured child, get a written statement of lost wages from your employer. Be sure the statement includes lost opportunities for overtime, and any vacation or sick leave you had to use. If you used FMLA, keep copies of the paperwork.
  7. Keep a Diary: Begin writing daily notes about your child’s accident, injuries, and treatment. Include descriptions of changes in the child’s behavior, bad dreams, bedwetting, or regressive behavior. Be sure to include notes on your child’s pain levels, reaction to medicine, special diets, and any other information that shows how the injury has affected your child.

Manufacturer Liability for Defective Toys

Toy injury claims are based on the legal concept of product liability, alleging the toy was defectively designed, built, or labeled.

In a product liability case against a designer or manufacturer, you’d argue that “but for” the manufacturer’s negligence, your child would not have been injured.

A product liability claim involves one or more types of product defects:

  • Design defects are mistakes or flaws built into the toy when it’s first manufactured, or during design modifications, like rocket toys that can hit a child in the face.
  • Manufacturing defects can occur even if the product’s design was safe, but there was a mistake made while the toy was being built, like coating the toy with toxic chemicals.
  • Marketing defects (“Failure to Warn”) happen when the manufacturer doesn’t provide the user with enough information to use the toy safely, like failing to advise that a toy with small parts is “not suitable for children under the age of three.”

What is strict liability?

Sometimes the evidence showing a toy is dangerous is completely obvious. When authorities determine the design or manufacture of a toy is hazardous, parents aren’t required to prove the manufacturer or retailer was negligent.

Case Example: Benchmark Penalty for Lead Paint in Toys  

In 2009, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) fined Mattel, Inc. and its subsidiary Fischer-Price, a $2.3 million civil penalty for violating federal lead paint bans.

The penalty was the largest fine ever assessed for a product safety violation.

About 95 different toy models sold by Mattel and Fischer-Price were found to be covered with paints containing non-compliant levels of lead. Lead poisoning can cause brain and nervous system damage in children.

The dangerous toys, totaling nearly two million, had been imported from China between 2006 and 2007. The toys were subsequently recalled.

Why Recalls are Important

Sometimes the only way a toy manufacturer learns about a dangerous product is after parents complain.

Manufacturers recall toys because they don’t want their products causing any more injuries. They also don’t want to be sued because they failed to recall a dangerous toy.

Toy Recall: Snacktime Doll “Eats” Children’s Fingers and Hair

Mattel, Inc. introduced the Cabbage Patch Kids® Snacktime Kids doll in the fall of 1996. The doll could “eat” toy foods, chewing with its powerful battery-operated teeth and “swallowing” into a stomach cavity that could be later emptied.

After hundreds of consumer complaints and lawsuits from parents of children whose fingers and hair had been caught in the doll’s mechanized mouth (including a threatened lawsuit seeking more than $25 million), the doll was voluntarily recalled from the market.

Consumers were offered a $40 refund for the return of the defective toy. At the time of the recall, more than 500,000 Snacktime Kids dolls had been sold.

Dangerous toy recalls are widely publicized on television, social media, the manufacturer’s website, as well as government sites. Usually, the manufacturer offers a rebate for the defective toy.

Visit the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for the latest list of recalled toys.

When a toy defect is widely publicized, and a parent allows the child to continue playing with the toy, it will be much harder to prove the manufacturer is to blame for the child’s injuries. The defense team for the toy manufacturer will argue that the parent is to blame for allowing their child to play with a recalled toy.