A Keelung couple has been awarded NT$4.4 million (US$144,713) in damages in a civil suit after a bed rail resulted in their five-month-old son’s death.
On May, 2015, the couple’s son suffocated to death after his head became trapped between the mattress and a 110cm by 70cm convertible mesh bed rail installed along one side of his bed.
The couple pressed criminal charges and after the case reached the High Court, they decided to seek civil damages by suing Pan Yung-chu (潘永珠), owner of ST Baby Co, distributor of the bed rail.
The suit also named the contract manufacturer and the retail store.
On Monday, the High Court in Taipei ruled that the defendants must compensate the couple NT$4.4 million for selling them a bed rail that was not safe and lacked adequate warning labels.
It was not clear how responsibility for the compensation is to be divided among the three parties.
In the criminal case, Pan was prosecuted under the Criminal Code for professional negligence causing the death of a person. In December last year, the High Court upheld a lower court ruling by sentencing him to one year in prison.
Pan appealed the High Court’s verdict, sending the case to the Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a final ruling.
The couple had found their baby without any vital signs just a few hours after putting him to bed.
Investigators said that the baby was found with his head stuck between the mattress and the rail’s flexibile screen.
An autopsy later determined that the cause of death was suffocation.
In contesting the district court’s guilty verdict before the High Court, Pan said that the parents were to blame for the incident, because they had failed to periodically check on their son during the night.
The baby died with traces of milk in his trachea, indicating he might have choked, Pan said.
The High Court disagreed, citing the autopsy findings that choking was not a factor in the baby’s death.
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