Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Craig Zucker settles with CPSC

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission:

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is announcing a voluntary recall of all Buckyballs and Buckycubes. … Refunds will be processed through a Recall Trust that will be funded by Mr. Zucker, but created and controlled by CPSC.

According to Zucker in a press release:

The settlement amount is less than 1% of the original $57 million that the CPSC estimated a recall to cost and is not a fine or penalty….

In February of 2013, the CPSC took unprecedented action by naming Zucker personally under the controversial Park Doctrine as an officer of the company that sold Buckyballs®.

This happened after Zucker, in what was itself an unusual if not unprecedented stand for an executive at a firm subject to CPSC regulation, took a vigorous public stand defending his product against the commission’s recall demands and even employed jokes and caricatures to make fun of CPSC commissioners. Earlier coverage here. More: Nancy Nord.

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5 Comments

  • Anyone actually going to send them back? They can take my buckyballs from my cold dead hands.

    • By Kilroy

  • Disappointed he didn’t fight them all the way on this, but I guess I can’t blame them. When the government brings the mighty hammer down, citizens pretty much have no choice but to cower. What a democracy we’ve allowed this country to turn into.

  • If the police in Philadelphia obtained buckyballs illegally during a bodega search, do they have to return them?

    • By royb

  • Product recalled, off the market, illegal to sell, and a recall paid for by a former executive – seems like the CPSC got exactly what it wanted. I’m pretty sure that there is nothing else that a judge could have even ordered even if it had been pursued all the way to the end. Things like penalties and fines weren’t on the table to begin with.

  • The settlement says that the recall fund is $375,000. I would imagine that this is far less than the cost of litigation. In that respect it IS a victory for Zucker, however the fact remains that the CPSC threw its weight around and put him out of business.

    • By E-Bell