Brain-Damaged Toddler's Family Wins $2.5 Million Settlement Against Fisher-Price Over Choking Figurine

In January 1971, thirteen-month-old Iain Cunningham choked on a small cylindrical Fisher-Price Little People figurine. The toy lodged in his airway long enough to cut off oxygen to his brain. He survived but was left permanently physically and mentally disabled, conditions that would define the rest of his life.

The Cunningham family retained Boston product-liability attorney Edward M. Swartz of Swartz and Swartz, along with his colleague Alan L. Cantor. The case was filed in 1973. The defendant was the Quaker Oats Company, which owned the Fisher-Price division. The litigation moved to federal court in the Western District of New York, where the docket number eventually produced a published opinion: Cunningham by Cunningham v. Quaker Oats Co., 639 F. Supp. 234 (W.D.N.Y. 1986).

Central to the case was evidence that Fisher-Price had been aware of the choking risk posed by the original barrel-shaped Little People figures since the mid-1960s. Company executives admitted under oath that no formal testing had ever been conducted to determine whether the figures could be swallowed or inhaled by a child. That admission, combined with the volume of prior choking incidents the company had on record, undercut any defense that the hazard was unforeseeable.

The litigation stretched across sixteen years. By the time proceedings before the district court concluded in 1986, the parties had moved toward resolution. In 1987, Quaker Oats settled the case for $2.5 million. The outcome was one of the earliest large product-liability recoveries tied specifically to small-toy choking hazards.

Edward Swartz had by then written 'Toys That Kill,' a 1986 consumer-safety book whose cover featured three original Little People figurines. The Cunningham case appeared prominently in that book. His advocacy contributed to industry and regulatory pressure that eventually led Fisher-Price to redesign the Little People line with larger, safer figures. The American Museum of Tort Law in Winsted, Connecticut, maintains an exhibit addressing the Little People choking hazard and the litigation surrounding it.