In December of 2016, attorneys say, a mom from Arizona had to take her son to the emergency room after the skin at the base of his penis tore when he stood up from using the weePOD Basix. They also claim the 3-year-old boy from the original lawsuit has severe scarring and suffers from “permanent erectile dysfunction.”
“We were, I don’t know how to explain it, horrified seeing that happen to our son,” he told ABC 7. “There was blood, skin, everything everywhere.”
Prince Lionheart reportedly redesigned the potty seats in response to the original lawsuit, which was filed in 2017. But the class action lawsuit alleges that the company failed to warn parents of the danger, and the defective seats were still being sold in stores.
“The company is refusing to stop selling this defective product,” John Carpenter, a coattorney for the parents, said at a June press conference. “They’ve modified it, but the defective ones are still out there, and they’re going to be hurting kids in the future.”
“The Court has issued a protective order that bars the parties and their attorneys from disclosing any information that has been produced during the discovery process. … For that reason, I am unable to comment about the details of the case,” the statement reads. “What I can say is that my client is a family owned company that has been developing products that meet the highest standards in safety, quality, and performance for the past 45 years.”
According the lawsuits, more than 500,000 of the potty seats were sold and could still be in circulation by families who purchased them. The WeePOD Basix and WeePOD Toilet Trainer Squish seats with alleged complaints were all manufactured before March 23, 2018.
