Record fine for breach of childrens nightclothes fire safety standard
Published29 Jan 1998
Dress For Less has been fined $20,000 plus $1,130 in costs, after pleading guilty in the Wellington District Court this afternoon to six charges of supplying children's nightclothes which did not meet the product safety standard. That is the highest penalty imposed to date by the courts for breaches of these regulations.
This case comes on top of an earlier case in August 1995 when Dress For Less was fined $6,500 for 3 breaches of the children's nightclothes standard. Fair Trading Manager, Rachel Leamy, said the safety standard is designed to protect children from the time they can crawl from the dangers of wearing flammable or loose fitting garments around fires or heaters.
All garments permitted by the safety standard must be correctly labelled - either LOW FIRE DANGER if made from low fire danger fabrics or WARNING: FLAMMABLE FABRIC if made in a form fitting style from flammable fabric. Loose fitting garments made from flammable fabric are prohibited.
In this case, the pyjamas were made from 100% Cotton and should have been labelled 'WARNING: FLAMMABLE FABRIC". In fact they had no fire safety labels at all. Because the pyjamas were Cotton, it is likely that the garments would light easily and burn readily. Unfortunately there is a common misconception that cotton fabrics are low fire danger fabrics. The Regulations provide the public with protection against this misconception.
Dress For Less said that the omission of the fire labels was overlooked when the imported garments arrived in NZ from the overseas manufacturer. The Company's quality control procedures had failed and the unlabelled garments were distributed to DFL stores throughout New Zealand. The company had now taken steps to ensure that this would not recur.
In sentencing, DFL Judge Fraser accepted that the offending was due to a failure of the system. He went on to say that penalties must be real and that the potential for children to be harmed from combustion was real.
Rachel Leamy stated that it is vital that all businesses in the industry fully understand what the safety standard requires of them . It is also important that they realise that the Commission pays close attention to any matter involving product safety standards. We will continue to take strong action against any breach of a safety standard made mandatory by the Fair Trading Act.
