2 days ago
Baby sleep sack maker sues US for $90 million over safety remarks
Aug 15 (Reuters) - The manufacturer of a weighted sleep sack designed to aid infant slumber has sued the United States for $90 million in damages over what it called false claims about the safety of its swaddles and other products.
California-based Dreamland Baby said in its lawsuit, opens new tab in the federal court in Santa Ana that its business suffered dramatically after a former member of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission last year made misleading claims that the agency found weighted sleep products to pose dangers to infants.
Dreamland said the agency voted against regulating weighted sleep sacks or issuing safety standards for them in 2023. But it said then-commissioner Richard Trumka Jr still 'elected to take matters into his own hands' in a rogue public campaign against Dreamland.
'While Dreamland may never fully recover from what has occurred, this action seeks to repair some of these wrongs,' Dreamland's attorneys at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner said in the lawsuit.
The company said it was in 'financial and reputational peril.'
Trumka, who is not a defendant, could not be immediately reached for comment. The product safety commission referred a request for comment to the U.S. Justice Department, which declined to comment.
Dreamland had no immediate comment.
The lawsuit marks an escalation of a court battle between Dreamland and the federal government that began last year.
Dreamland in November sued, opens new tab Trumka, the product safety commission and other defendants in federal court in Washington, seeking a court order to stop what it called "baseless and unlawful attacks on weighted infant sleep products."
Dreamland's sleep sacks, developed in 2019, are sown with polypropylene beads that add weight and, according to the company, place gentle pressure on infants that helps soothe them for better sleep.
Dreamland said it was driving millions of dollars in sales annually until last year.
Trumka in a statement, opens new tab on the product safety agency's website last year urged retailers to stop sales of weighted blankets and swaddles for babies.
He cited what he said were warnings from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new lawsuit said that no formal product safety determination has been made regarding Dreamland's products.
The case is Dreamland Baby Co v. United States, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 8:25-cv-01798.
For Dreamland: Matthew Schwartz and Dan Boyle of Boies Schiller Flexner
For United States: No appearance yet
