A Safe and Merry Holiday Season: Avoiding Defective Toys

Now that the holiday season is upon us, there are lots of reasons to buy gifts for your loved ones. As you’re purchasing toys for the little ones in your life, it’s important to make sure that you are keeping those in your care safe! Here at Ann Brown Legal, we work with parents when their children are injured. It’s important to think of the many ways children can be injured in the day-to-day, including when they’re having fun! As you’re buying for those that are close to you around this holiday season, be mindful of the gifts you choose.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, over 225,000 children were injured in 2018 by their toys.  As you’re buying toys, there are a few things you can do to screen the products keep your children safe. One general guideline is checking the age appropriateness on the packaging. If you’re buying for especially young children, you should check to see if there are any small parts of the toy that might be swallowed. Check the labels for approval from the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the American Society for Testing and Materials, and check if the toy company has published any warnings. 

You can also be knowledgeable about past cases of recalled hazardous toys. Toys in the past and present have been recalled for a variety of reasons, though there are some common themes in the ways toys have caused significant injuries or death. One mistake made by companies is including toxic chemicals in the toys that are poisonous when ingested (like in the Aquadots toy case.) Buckyballs became famous for it’s hazardous magnets, as magnets can cause significant injury when swallowed. Other common themes are related to heat: for example, early Easy-Bake Ovens were recalled for getting too hot, and some iterations of the Hoverboard were recalled for bursting into flame. (If you want to know about toys which have recalled recently, you can click here for a list of recalled items for 2019.)

As with other personal injury cases, you must prove that the other party (the toy company, in this case) was at fault. If your child has been injured by a toy, it can be difficult to sue the manufacturing company for compensation, as you have to prove negligence. You must prove that the toy you purchased was either defective, improperly designed, or didn’t include sufficient instructions for use or to keep your child safe. 

If your child has been injured by a defective toy and you need a personal injury lawyer, please call us at (319) 826-2250 for a free initial consultation. 

The above information is meant to be helpful, but is not meant to replace the legal advice of an attorney with whom you have an attorney-client relationship.

Lawyer Like a Mother

We are getting ready for Mother’s Day Weekend and I am hoping to spend Sunday being waited on hand and foot by my girls and my husband … or at least getting out of doing the laundry. But I am also reflecting on my mom and on being a mom and thinking about all of the mommas who have impacted me both personally and as a lawyer.

It feels like a cliché to say, “I would not be where I am today without my mom.” But sometimes phrases become cliché because they are universally true. I am not going to list all of the times my mom picked me up or pushed me forward or believed in me—there are too many. She forced me to go to college, encouraged me to go to law school and when the time came, to open my own law firm. When fear of failure held me back, she pushed and pushed with her relentless belief in both me and my idea of a different kind of law firm. She even came out of retirement to be the business manager at this firm, even though she is a bit over qualified.

And becoming a mom, well that has had a tremendous impact on the kind of lawyer I am too. When I first started practicing law, I saw my personal life and professional life as completely separate. But as my career went on and I grew from my failures and successes, I realized that my values, my family, my thoughts and feelings—all the parts that make up my life—were critically important to being the best lawyer that I can be.

I have no doubt that being a mom has made me a better lawyer.

1. It has certainly made me more patient. Without fail, it takes my 12-year-old daughter 30 minutes from the time I announce we have to leave until she is in the car with all items that she needs.

2. Having children is very humbling. All of my flaws, every mistake I make (big or small) my kids are right there to point it out to both me and complete strangers that may be nearby.

3. It has helped me to see what is important. When I represent injured people or families who have lost someone, I am able to better understand what has truly been lost and better able to tell their stories to the jury.

4. It has made me more passionate about what I do. I am inspired to be an example for my girls. I also feel a sense of obligation to do the most that I can to make the world a little better, a little safer, a little fairer.

5. It helps me put my clients’ needs first. Sometimes lawyers make cases about themselves. It becomes the lawyer’s win. But I see my cases as my clients’ cases. It is their story, not mine. While I advise them, ultimately, they make the decisions about their cases. This is something I learned from having children. It is just not about me.

I have represented a lot of moms in both their own claims or claims they brought for their child who was harmed by another. Moms from all walks of life. I have witnessed time and again the enduring love of motherhood. Moms who have spent months in hospitals with their children. Moms working two jobs to put food on the table but who have still managed to make it to every basketball game. Moms who have stood up for their children through cases lasting years or through defense attorneys taking shots at them. Moms showing unbelievable strength, courage and most of all, love for their children.

This last year is the first time I have ever heard the phrase “There is no such thing as other people’s children.” Nothing has ever resonated with me as much as this statement. I want this to be the motto of my life. We should care about all children as if they were our own.

From my mom and being a mom, and from all the moms I have known, I have learned to be courageous, tenacious and compassionate—to lawyer like a mother.

Happy Mother’s Day!

We Stand With The Children Separated From Their Parents and Here is How You Can Too!

I have been watching the news, horrified with the rest of the country, watching as immigrant children are taken from their parents at the US Border. Regardless of your feelings about immigration laws and immigration reform, I think we can all agree this practice has to stop and these babies need to be reunited with their families. 

I practice in personal injury and employment law, but watching this crisis unfold I have wished that I was an immigration lawyer so that I could advocate for these children in court. But these children need experienced immigration attorneys fighting for them and getting them back into the arms of their parents. If these children cannot obtain counsel they could stand in front of judges and represent themselves! There are a number of organizations providing legal advocacy that you can support financially. Our office is supporting RAICES, (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services), and KIND (Kids in Need of Defense). Below are links to a number of organizations providing legal assistance to immigrant children:

1.  RAICES Family Reunification and Bond Fund;
2. Kids in Need of Defense; 
3. The Florence Project; 
4. The ACLU; 
5. The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights; and 
6. Together Rising Love Flash Mob for the Children

Even small donations help. In addition to financial support, these children need you to let your voices be heard. Contact your representatives to let them know that you oppose the policy of separating children from their parents at the border. If you want to learn more about what you can do in the face of this crisis, please read this article from the New York Times. 

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN. 

Girls Who Read Become Women Who Lead

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We are pretty excited here at Ann Brown Legal to be launching our annual charitable initiative we have decided to call Girls Who Read Become Women Lead. Every year we will donate a book that we believe has an empowering message for young girls to each of the elementary schools in the Cedar Rapids Community School District to use in their library. This initiative is near and dear to the hearts of all of us at the firm because we are all avid readers. We are also committed to seeing the girls in our community reach their full potential and believe that providing access to books featuring strong female characters or strong messages for young girls is a step in the right direction.

A recent study conducted at Dartmouth College found that 57% of children's books published in the United States featured male lead characters and only 36.5% featured female lead characters. The researchers found that these disparities "contribute to a sense of unimportance among girls." But many authors and publishers are committed to changing this and Girls Who Read Become Women Who Lead is about making sure that girls in Cedar Rapids have access to these books.

Unfortunately, Cedar Rapids Public Schools are grossly underfunded, which results in limited resources available for expanding, or even maintaining, school libraries. We hope to help in some small way and potentially inspire others to do the same by donating books to school libraries in need.

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This year the book we have chosen is Strong is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves, by  Kate T. Parker. The book features amazing photographs of girls playing, fighting, living and loving along with powerful messages from each girl. One message from 12-year-old Kylie is: "Some girls never lose. They only learn and come back stronger." We were inspired by the book and reminded just to be ourselves, and we hope that the girls who get to read the book feel the same. 

 

Happy reading to our future leaders!

Representing children is not simply representing small adults

It is particularly devastating when a child sustains a preventable injury. Beyond simply the additional tragedy that occurs when a child is injured, there are also additional legal considerations. I have represented many Iowa children, injured because of someone else's negligence and have found that it is critical to thoroughly understand the law applicable to pursuing a claim and obtaining a recovery on behalf of a child. 

One of the first things to understand is that a child cannot bring a lawsuit on behalf of themselves; the lawsuit must be filed by an adult. Oftentimes, the lawsuit is filed by the child's parents, but when that is not possible, the court will appoint a conservator to pursue the child's claim. Parents of injured children have their own claims, called loss of consortium, that are often brought in the same lawsuit as the child's claim. 

Additionally, if the adult bringing the claim on behalf of the child settles the child's claim for more than $25,000, the court must approve the settlement and in part how the settlement money will be spent. It is critical for children who are receiving public benefits like Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps or rental assistance to have their settlement structured in a way that allows the child and their family to retain most benefits. This is also an important consideration if the child has a mental disability and may need public benefits in the future. 

I have found that money obtained on behalf of injured children has often been life changing for those children. For some of my young clients, it has provided the means for a safe and healthy home; for others, it has allowed them to obtain additional services not otherwise available to the child. Pursuing claims on behalf of injured children is absolutely one of the most important things that I do as a lawyer.