Government agency traps family business in no-win, in-house tribunal  

Necessity may be the mother of all invention. For Jamie Leach, an Ada, Oklahoma, mother and registered nurse-turned-entrepreneur who fashioned an impromptu highchair safety wrap from a purse strap, emergency is invention’s accelerator.

Jamie and her husband, Clyde, launched Leachco in 1988, a few months after Jamie’s modified homemade safety wrap became an instant hit with other parents and they secured a patent.

“We quit our jobs and went full time marketing the ‘Wiggle Wrap.’ We had no customers. We had no sales. We went to the Oklahoma State Fair after we got the patent. We were there for twelve 12-hour days, and we started getting customers,” says Jamie. “And a department store called Streets that had 10 stores in Oklahoma ordered the Wiggle Wrap for all their stores.”

Jamie’s creative innovation blossomed, as did Leachco’s array of safe, quality baby products and the trust of countless expectant mothers, families, and caregivers. When Leachco’s Podster infant lounger hit the market in 2009, parents and caregivers needing to momentarily free up their hands now had another way to keep babies safe. The Podster became a popular product, with sales topping 180,000.

Like all Leachco products, the Podster prioritizes infant safety and expressly instructs its use only when babies are awake and under constant adult supervision.

Despite Leachco’s excellent safety record, there’s no guarantee consumers will heed product warnings—or common sense. Failure to follow safe-sleep recommendations, guidelines, and warnings led to the accidental deaths of three infants.

“It was heartbreaking. My whole professional adult life has been devoted to healing and improving safety and health. That’s what nurses do. That’s what my training taught me. That’s who I was. And then this happened,” says Jamie, grimly. “I’m a different person now.”

Then came the federal Consumer Protection Safety Commission (CPSC). Tasked with rooting out defective products—such as space heaters with faulty wiring—the agency has vast discretion to define “defect” and has used that discretion to make unilateral, arbitrary decisions. That the tragic cases here reflect misuse and failure to follow product warnings—and not a product defect—apparently doesn’t matter to the CPSC.

The agency claimed the Podster is defective because people could ignore safety warnings, and it demanded that Leachco recall the product and refund every purchase.

“Nothing like this had ever happened. We spent 35 years building our company from literally nothing and building relationships with the industry, our retailers, our suppliers, and our customers,” says Jamie. “We enjoyed a wonderful business and we were well regarded, and all of it was obliterated with one unilateral demand.”

As if the recall requirement isn’t devastating enough, the agency also isn’t fighting fair—and that’s by design. Instead of taking its case before an independent judge and jury in a court of law, the agency launched an in-house administrative proceeding. That is, an internal tribunal in which the CPSC will decide its own case, serving as prosecutor, trial judge, jury, and, if necessary, appellate judge.

Only after this administrative ordeal can Leachco bring its appeal to an actual court of law. Even then, the court must defer to the Commission’s decisions.

The Leaches did not want to give in to the CPSC, take the Podster off the market, and have a permanent black mark on their company. Plus, they knew that under the CPSC’s logic, no product is safe. Any federal agency could ban any product that could possibly be misused, regardless of proper warnings.

“We didn’t know what to do. We were desperate for help,” says Jamie. “We have employees who have been here 30-plus years who have entrusted us with their futures and their families. We’re a small business, but we feel a huge responsibility to them, so we do everything we can to make sure that they’re getting their paycheck.”

The Leaches had stopped paying themselves more than a year earlier. They were draining their 35-year marital savings to make payroll and keep their company afloat. With money running out and legal fees mounting, they were on the verge of going out of business when they met PLF and learned how the CPSC’s actions blatantly violated their rights.

“PLF explained to us that it isn’t the Podster. It is the process that we’re being subjected to,” recalls Jamie. “That’s what’s destroying us—the system itself that creates its own rules, its own jury, its own judges, its own punishment. It’s just ‘Our way or the highway.’”

“PLF was a Godsend to help us navigate this dark path,” she adds.

“The only hazard in all of this is the CPSC’s abusive tactics,” says PLF senior attorney Oliver Dunford. “If the agency disagrees with us that Leachco’s product is perfectly safe when used properly, it must respect the Leaches’ due process rights and prove its case in a court of law, before an independent judge and jury.”

With free representation by PLF, the Leaches are fighting back both on the agency’s turf, challenging its dubious efforts to force the product off the market, and in federal court to restore their due process rights and the rule of law.

“We believe in our company. We believe we haven’t done anything wrong. We felt like we need to right this,” declares Jamie. “I hope, by us doing the right thing, that someone else won’t have to experience the same thing.”