By Patricia Callahan | Tribune reporter
December 19, 2008
The family of a child who died this year in a Winnie the Pooh bassinet has sued the Walt Disney Co., alleging the company allowed sales of the bassinets despite a flawed design that had been linked to another baby's death a year earlier.
The bassinet had a drop-down side for easy access, but the design created a gap where babies could slide through and hang to death. Kennedy Brotherton Jones was 6 months old when she was strangled on Aug. 21.
Shortly after Kennedy's death, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission directed retailers to stop selling the bassinets, which were manufactured by Simplicity Inc. Disney's consumer products division licensed its Winnie the Pooh name and image to Simplicity, records show.
The suit, filed in California state court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, raises questions about a common practice in the nursery products industry: Are companies that license their names and characters to other manufacturers responsible when those products turn out to be deadly?
About 11 months before Kennedy's death, a 4-month-old Missouri baby, Katelyn Marie Simon, died after getting trapped in a Simplicity-branded bassinet that shared the same design as the Winnie the Pooh bassinets. Kennedy's family alleged in its suit that Disney knew or should have known about Katelyn's death and should have halted sales of the bassinets before Kennedy's aunt bought hers.
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