But I would challenge his status as an expert witness in a 2007 trial, given he left the Commission in 2005, and given he now runs a charter marine service.

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the person” or “argument against the person”) is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a irrelevent characteristic or belief of a and person advocating the premise.

Shame on you for your distain for the noble charter boat captains among us.

I feel convinced now that our expert witness is completely credible. Keep looking…

“Companies are required by federal law to “report to CPSC immediately on learning of a problem with a product that makes it a substantial hazard or poses a potential hazard,” commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said.”

Fair enough. A legal obligation imposed upon manufacturers of consumer goods. So when did MacLaren discover this design flaw?

“The company has known the stroller hinges could become finger guillotines since at least July 12, 2004, when 23-month-old Connecticut toddler Carlos DeWinter lost his right pinky, according to court papers obtained by The Post.”

So they knew about the design flaw for at least 5 years and didn’t make a modification. This does not undermine your point about parental responsibility. Except, as the DeWinter case points out, this thing was like a machine press:

“His mother, Jane DeWinter, was shopping for a Maclaren Triumph stroller at a Right Start shop near her Greenwich home, and she was testing the one-handed folding and unfolding mechanism. . .
As she was about to lock the stroller into the open position, Carlos put his finger on the hinge, and he suffered a “traumatic amputation,” the court papers said.”

This is not a case where a kid had one bad day after multiple uses, or that the hinge failed over time. No, this thing gave poor Master DeWinter the chop while his mother was shopping for it.

If a known design flaw and failure to comply with a federal relagtion are not enough to attach liability, how about failure to design the hinge in conformity with Federal standards?

Robert Moro, an engineer and former compliance officer with the Consumer Products Safety Commission, testified in 2007 that “this stroller contains a substantial design defect when compared to other types of designs of strollers intended to be used by children.”

The way the stroller was designed and manufactured in China violated federal guidelines intended to prevent a gruesome “scissoring effect,” Moro said.