CPSC Recommends Carve-Outs In Protective Orders, Settlement Agreements

A recently issued notice encourages litigants to ensure that they are free to share product defect information with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published a novel notice on December 2 in the Federal Register titled "Litigation Guidance and Recommended Best Practices for Protective Orders and Settlement Agreements in Private Civil Litigation."

In the notice, the CPSC recommends the inclusion of exemptions in protective orders and settlement agreements governing the treatment of confidential information that allow "any party to report consumer product safety information, incidents, injuries and deaths to the CPSC"—notwithstanding limitations otherwise imposed on the dissemination of such information. The guidance in the CPSC notice is largely modeled after recent guidance issued by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.