Creator of Buckyballs sues CPSC

The company cofounder claims the agency's attempt to hold him liable for recalling the magnetic toys is illegal

Last updated: November 13, 2013 06:15 PM

Buckyballs were usually sold in sets of more of than 200 tiny high-powered magnets.

Craig Zucker, cofounder of Maxfield & Oberton Holdings LLC, the company that created and marketed Buckyballs, one of several brands of high-powered magnet sets sold as desk toys, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (PDF). Zucker's suit seeks to prevent the agency from holding him personally liable for complying with a proposed product recall of Buckyballs, which would require him to provide refunds to consumers who purchased them.

At an October 2013 public hearing held by the CPSC, several doctors urged that sets of these superstrong magnetic toys be banned due to the life-threatening risks they can pose if ingested by children or teens. Magnet ingestions occur frequently, sometimes with tragic consequences. A recent study based on an analysis of emergency-room data estimates that 7,159 emergency-room visits from 2002 through 2011 were attributable to superstrong neodymium magnets.

In July 2012, the CPSC sued Maxfield & Oberton (PDF), the company that marketed Buckyballs, seeking a full product recall. Maxfield & Oberton was dissolved in December 2012. The CPSC now has a suit against Zucker pending before an administrative-law judge. The suit seeks to force Zucker to comply with the terms of the proposed product recall, including providing refunds to consumers.

Zucker retained Cause of Action, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, to file his suit against the CPSC. "The commission has committed an unprecedented act by attempting to hold an individual entrepreneur liable for a recall that CPSC is seeking against a company that it forced out of business," said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, in a public statement about the case.

Citing the agency's concern about children who have been seriously injured after ingesting high-powered magnets, a CPSC spokesman, Scott Wolfson, said: "Through enforcement, education, and rulemaking, the CPSC is working to keep children safe and reduce their exposure to this hazard—a hazard that doctors have described as a gunshot wound to the gut with no sign of entry or exit. CPSC staff continues to stand behind the administrative lawsuit and our pursuit of a free remedy for consumers of Buckyballs and Buckycubes."

—Andrea Rock