Weed Trimmer Kills 3-Year-Old; Family Receives $7.35 Million
27 Jul 2007
July 26, 1999 - A $7.35 million cash settlement has been announced for the parents of a 3-year-old Alabama girl who was killed when a link from a weed trimmer broke off and penetrated her brain.
The Weed Wizard was marketed as the solution to the problem suffered by traditional weed trimmers - the plastic filament used to cut the weeds wears down quickly and requires frequent replacement.
The key to achieving the settlement was finding a former sales director for the defendant Weed Wizard Corporation and discovering there had been a ban on the product in Australia.
Weed Wizard acknowledged 12 other accidents in formal legal discovery, but an ad in USA Today turned up more. Also, Weed Wizard did not voluntarily acknowledge its product had been the subject of regulatory action, but an Internet search proved otherwise.
On the website of Australia's Department of Employment, Training and Industrial Relations, was a document showing that sale of the Weed Wizard was banned in that country in 1992, after the Australian counterpart to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found the device defective and unreasonably dangerous.
A press release announcing the ban referred to the Weed Wizard as a potentially lethal weed-cutting device, and concluded by saying, "So far, no injuries have been reported and I would like to ensure that none are."
Weed Wizard's response to the ban was to simply stop selling the product in Australia. Also, pretrial discovery revealed that two company officers knew of the ban but did not tell anyone else, including the sales department.
On Aug. 24, 1997, 3-year-old Peyton Pytlewicz was swinging on the swing set behind her grandfather's house while her grandfather trimmed the lawn with his Weed Wizard. The grandfather saw the little girl fall off the swing and found her unconscious on the ground with a small trickle of blood coming from her temple.
He rushed the girl to the hospital assuming she must have hurt herself on the swing set. But when doctors performed a CT Scan, they found that the last link in the Weed Wizard chain lodged three-inches deep in her brain.
In addition to settling with Weed Wizard for $7 million, the Pytlewicz family settled with Tanaka Kogyo Company, Ltd. of Japan, makers of the gas-powered line trimmer equipped with the Weed Wizard, for $300,000, and with Auto Electric Company of Tuscaloosa, Ala., distributor of Weed Wizard, for $50,000.
