Amazon fulfillment center
PHILADELPHIA – A Pennsylvania federal judge will hear a lawsuit claiming a child swing purchased on Amazon killed a 9-year-old boy.
Lex Heinisch was found unresponsive on Jan. 21 in a bedroom sensory swing manufactured by GGI, a lawsuit filed earlier this year in Philadelphia state court said. Attorney Kevin Clancy Boylan of Morgan & Morgan had hoped to keep the case out of federal court, but Amazon transferred it there and Judge Nitza Quinones Alejandro ruled last week that’s where it should stay.
Because Amazon is a Delaware company with its principal place of business in Washington, diversity exists among the parties that require the case be tried in federal court, Alejandro ruled. Co-defendant GGI is of New Jersey.
The order highlights the split in how federal and state courts view Pennsylvania’s “consent-by-registration” law. State courts usually say that when a company registers to sell products in Pennsylvania, it agrees to be sued in state courts there.
Federal courts have said otherwise.
“Many states require licensing or registration before an entity may do business within its borders,” Alejandro wrote. “Plaintiffs’ argument, taken to its logical conclusion, is that federal jurisdiction based on diversity is defeated by seeking the required licensure or registration; that doing so makes an entity a citizen of that state.
“That is not the law. Amazon is not a citizen of Pennsylvania.”
Helen Martin and Louis Heinisch bought the swing for Lex and say they followed instructions for its assembly, including a recommendation to place it in his bedroom. But he became entangled in it and passed away, the suit says.
Amazon and GGI acknowledge the risk of entrapment “but provided conflicting recommendations” on putting the swing in bedrooms, the suit says. Amazon’s AI tool “Rufus” scanned product reviews and found the swing was promoted as safe for bedrooms, the suit says.
The entrapment risk is a design defect, it is alleged, that was not sufficiently known to consumers. Had they known, the parents say they never would have purchased it.
The complaint made its argument for state-court jurisdiction in Philadelphia, where juries routinely hammer corporate defendants with large verdicts. Allowing Amazon to avoid that forum “would entirely eviscerate the statutory purpose of the consent statute,” Boylan wrote.
Heinisch enjoyed soccer and playing several instruments including guitar, his obituary said. His death devastated the Croydon section of Bristol Township in Bucks County.
