Oklahoma baby-products company vindicated after six-year fight

Muskogee, Oklahoma; March 17, 2026: A small, family-owned baby-products company, Leachco, Inc., prevailed today after the Consumer Product Safety Commission decided to give up—a rare case in which a small business outlasts a federal agency. The Commission’s decision follows a ruling by an administrative law judge (ALJ) who ruled in Leachco’s favor after a week-long administrative trial. The Commission’s order ends a six-year legal battle for Leachco and its founders, Jamie Leach and her late husband, Clyde.

“The government spent six years pursuing a case that it shouldn’t have brought and couldn’t prove,” said Oliver J. Dunford, senior attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. “The CPSC’s baseless lawsuit is a prime example of the administrative state’s abuse of entrepreneurs who want nothing more than to earn an honest living and run a lawful business.”

Jamie Leach, a registered nurse and mother, founded Leachco in 1988 after a scare with her infant son in a restaurant highchair. She started with a homemade safety wrap, secured dozens of patents, and built Leachco into a 40-employee business that created scores of safe, useful products, including the Podster® infant lounger. The CPSC began investigating Leachco in 2018, blaming the Podster for three infant deaths—even though the evidence clearly pointed to caregiver misuse, not any defect in the Podster.

In July 2024, a CPSC-appointed administrative law judge ruled the agency failed to prove any defect and, even if a defect had been established, that it caused substantial risk of injury to the public. The agency’s enforcement lawyers appealed to the Commission itself, the same agency that authorized the lawsuit in the first place. All but admitting defeat, the CPSC ordered that its complaint be dismissed and the case closed.

But the CPSC also ordered that the ALJ’s ruling in favor of Leachco be vacated so that regulated parties cannot rely on it in the future. The CPSC thus remains free to apply its arbitrary standards.

This ruling ends a proceeding in which the CPSC acted as investigator, prosecutor, and judge. However, the CPSC ordered the judge’s written opinion vacated, stripping it of any precedential value and ensuring that other businesses facing similar enforcement actions cannot use this ruling to defend themselves.

Pacific Legal Foundation represents Leachco free of charge. The case is Leachco, Inc. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission.