Evenflo Compensates Paralyzed Child

Successful resolution has been achieved in a case brought against Evenflo by Rob Ammons on behalf of a Texas man whose 3-year-old toddler daughter was rendered permanently quadriplegic when the booster seat she was in proved useless in a motor vehicle accident.

The paralyzing injury to this toddler was a severe C3-4 distraction injury with added stretch and vertebral artery components. Numerous surgeries and procedures saved her life but could not prevent her permanent ventilator-dependent quadriplegia. Her family has incurred some $4,000,000.00 in treating her injuries, and future life care costs have been projected to total at least $20,000,000.00 more.

The little girl was properly belted within an Evenflo Big Kid Sport booster seat when the family’s Dodge Journey was T-boned by another vehicle. Despite properly using the booster seat which the product labeling indicated was appropriate for her use, the little girl suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury. Now paralyzed from the neck down, she will be ventilator-dependent for the rest of her life.

The lawsuit in the case claimed that the Big Kid booster seat was marketed as a safety seat despite it being incapable of providing such a child — and especially the child’s head — with the restraint necessary to prevent serious injury in a side-impact crash.

According to Ammons, the Big Kid booster seat was launched without any side impact testing and was marketed for use by children as young as one year old with no minimum height restriction and a minimum weight of 30 pounds. Such children are far too small to use a booster seat. They are much safer in traditional child safety seats.

The inability of booster seats to provide head containment has been an enormous problem for consumers who rely on Evenflo for their child’s safety.

The Ammons Law Firm has a nationwide personal injury practice focusing on tire defects, truck accidents, rollovers, consumer protection and product liability, catastrophic injury, wrongful death, post-collision fires, seat belt defects, airbag defects, and plant explosions.