Day 4 Of The ICPHSO Symposium: Courtroom Drama & Consumer Voices

Day 4 marked the close of the ICPHSO 2026 Annual Meeting & Training Symposium in Orlando, Florida following a jam-packed week of education, exploration, and meaningful dialogue about the future of product safety and regulatory compliance in the U.S. and beyond. The day began with the traditional passing of the gavel to welcome incoming ICPHSO president Dani Cugini while acknowledging and celebrating the accomplishments of outgoing President Chris Harvey.

Then, in a first ever for ICPHSO, participants were thrust into the Courtroom for a mock-trial experience,giving many product safety professionals their first inside look at the complexities and challenges of litigating safety and products liability issues. Crowell's"court reporter,"Sean Ward,was on the scene with a riveting recap of all the action.As court was called to recess,Day 4's short program concluded with a series of plenary sessions highlighting the consumer perspective and the need for inclusive and proactive safety solutions that recognize the dynamic challenges faced by vulnerable populations and ensure accessibility to safety information for all.

Below is a closer look at select sessions from the final day of ICPHSO 2026.

Hidden Hazards, Overlooked Consumers: Closing the Safety Gap for Older Adults

This session put the voice of the consumer at the forefront, focusing today on the often unheard voice from older consumers. Older adults are an increasingly vulnerable yet under-recognized group in consumer product safety. Panelists highlighted that while regulations often account for children and people with diverse abilities, older adults rarely receive the same focus—even as the global population ages rapidly.This session looked at several case studies in how regulators are responding to this emerging concern and the challenges industry faces in designing senior-safe products. Panelists emphasized the "Three-Cs"—Community, Collaboration, and Commitment—as guiding principles to ensure product safety spans every generation.

Here is what product safety professionals need to know:

• A Call to Action. The data highlighted by the panel overwhelmingly supports that as demographics age, what wasn't previously a hazard starts to become a hazard in ways that many in the retail industry have underappreciated. Trends support a consistent increase in preventable loss of life amongst older populations caused by everyday products, many of which are even designed to assist the elderly. These include medical bed rails, toilets, baths, hygiene products and cooking appliances to name a few. The time to act is now by continuing to elevate the issue within the product safety community and to promote testing standards for older populations, according to advocates. Simple measures like requiring brand name identifiers on all products could also help lead to better outcomes by helping consumers stay informed when there are recalls and product safety alerts impacting these product types.

• International Perspectives Highlight Broader Opportunities. In countries like Australia, regulators are launching proactive campaigns aimed at collecting diverse perspectives and data from public health authorities, communities of consumers and regulators alike, to inform policy decisions and educate consumers on the risk facing older populations. In one such study looking at the most prevalent causes of injury amongst older adults, regulators were able to identify the most common types of injuries sustained and the product types most likely to cause them, helping to facilitate productive dialogue about preventable injuries and community education.

From Tragedy to Transformation: Safeguarding Tomorrow's Shoppers

The panelists for this session represented diverse perspectives across the retail product safety experience to explore how real-world safety incidents can catalyze meaningful improvements in product safety. Through the lens of lived experiences, industry observations, and evolving data patterns,the panel considered how collaboration and strategic information sharing between industry, medical experts, parent advocates, and consumer organizations can strengthen early warning systems and create systemic change in consumer product safety. Panelists brought unique perspectives including from industry product safety professionals and leaders, two parents who founded separate consumer advocacy groups following personal tragedy suffered at the hands of unsafe products, and the perspective of a leading online influencer and retail platform as the panel looked at the role social media plays in educating consumers and keeping them safe.

Here is what product safety professionals need to know:

• Influencers Influence Views of Safe Products, Not Just Shopping Habits. While many people think of social media influencers as influencing our shopping behavior online in terms of trends and fashion, influencers are continually shaping views of product safety — both in good and bad ways. Consumers' use of product reviews as a bellwether to determine whether a product is right for them and meets their safety and quality expectations continues to evolve. Online reviews are being subsumed by short videos, influencer reviews and promotions, and many other forms of dynamic content that speak to the product in terms far beyond what can be found on the packaging. Interestingly, it creates a situation where online shoppers and social media followers now have different information than what people shopping in brick-and-mortar stores or even on traditional online retail sites may have. Brands should continue to monitor these trends and get involved. As a brand you have followers who are dedicated and want to see you represented correctly.

• The Future is Now. Panelists agreed that social media is the future of dissemination of product safety information in real time to the masses and that for younger generations of consumers, the future is already here. With that reality, however, comes the need to consider how this content is being moderated, verified and packaged. As it stands today, it can be very difficult for consumers to parse and validate the sources of much of the information they receive. Panelists believe that brands and retailers should be proactively looking for ways to authenticate and validate this content as it relates to their products and to participate in the conversation. Consumer advocates, in particular, will continue to use social media as a forum for publicly holding firms accountable for what is happening and those companies should be prepared to address those concerns by meeting consumers in the forums where they are found.

Mock Trial (of the century?): Product Liability Case

The packed courtroom was filled with tension on a busy morning as attorneys prepared to argue a highly publicized product liability case involving an alleged design defect and inadequate warnings. Central to the trial was Ms. Anderson, a mother of three, who cherished her daily coffee ritual. Tragically, she sustained severe second and third-degree burns to her face and upper body, allegedly caused by a defective Brew Lynx ModelX 100 "Rapid Brew" home coffee maker. The plaintiff's legal team claimed the manufacturer prioritized profits over safety by continuing to market and sell the defective Brew LynxX 100 despite receiving 11 additional reports of earlier incidents similar to Ms. Anderson's. The defense maintained Ms. Anderson misused the product by ignoring clear warnings intended to prevent such accidents. Meanwhile, hundreds of spectators, journalists, and interested product safety stakeholders packed the courtroom, closely following the case with implications for the company, industry, and the tens of thousands of coffee drinkers nationwide.

Ms. Anderson testified that she was a daily coffee drinker familiar with the instructions to descale the machine every 30 days, although she did so sporadically. On the morning of the incident, she was enjoying breakfast with her family, eagerly anticipating her first sip of coffee when she heard a loud noise followed by a burst of scalding water shooting out from the coffee maker. Ms. Anderson testified that she fell to the floor after being sprayed, screaming in severe pain in front of her husband and three young children. Afterward, she was rushed to the hospital where she underwent three skin graft surgeries over the next 10 days. Despite medical treatment, she was permanently disfigured and faced such embarrassment that she avoided public outings and quit her job.

The defense countered by calling into question Ms. Anderson's conduct, eliciting admissions that she knowingly neglected the machine's descaling recommendation. The tension heightened when the company's Safety Compliance Manager testified that the Brew Lynx met all UL safety standards and was loved by most users, with only a few complaints.

The company's engineers had also recreated the incident, demonstrating that a failure to descale could cause dangerous steam and water release. The company claimed that it reported the incident to the CPSC out of an abundance of caution, maintained the product was not defective and had clear and sufficient warnings, blamed consumer misuse for causing her injuries, and developed a retrofit to fix the issue.

During cross-examination, the company conceded that it had knowledge of the 11 reports of similar incidents, albeit with no injuries, and that it recognized most customers would not descale as instructed, posing injury risks. Yet it did not report these incidents prior to Ms. Anderson's injury. Plaintiff's counsel emphasized the coffee maker's inadequate warnings, which included a list of 20 small print instructions, with descaling listed near the bottom of the list at number 19.

In closing, the defense argued there was no proof of a defect or a failure to warn and pointed to consumer misuse as the cause of Ms. Anderson's injuries. They contended post-incident retrofitting did not prove the product was defective.

Jury deliberations continue and appear to be leaning toward awarding Ms. Anderson damages, given the company's insufficient warnings, foreseeable misuse, and the company's failure to report 11 prior incidents.

We hope you enjoyed this year's Crowell team coverage from the ICPHSO Annual Meeting & Training Symposium in Orlando, Florida.

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