Court Rebuffs CPSC Database Disclosure Decision In Important Administrative Law Ruling

A federal court in Maryland recently released a heavily redacted decision entered at the end of July that found the Consumer Products Safety Commissions ("CPSC" or "Commission") had improperly decided to publish a report of harm in its consumer product safety database. In Company Doe v. Tenenbaum,¹ the United States District Court for the District of Maryland rejected all of the CPSC's arguments and found that the CPSC acted arbitrarily and capriciously and abused its discretion when it decided to publish the contested report.

Company Doe, which was not identified and whose product was also not identified, had contested the CPSC's decision to publish a "report of harm" identifying its product. Under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 ("CPSIA"), the CPSC is required to "establish and maintain a database on the safety of consumer products, that is –(1) publicly available; (B) searchable; and (C) accessible through the Internet website of the