Product recalls that affect people throughout the country including Pennsylvania are regularly issued due to a variety of issues. In some cases the design of the product is defective. Other times the design is fine but the product becomes defective while it is being manufactured. In still other cases, the product has been marketed in a way that could cause an injury to the user. Whatever the reason for the recall, they are important to heed as they are designed to protect the consumer.

Last month farm equipment manufacturing giant Deere & Co. issued two voluntary recalls of lawn tractors. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated the recalls are due to laceration hazards and concerns the brakes will fail.

The recall concerning the laceration hazard pertains to approximately 15,000 lawn tractors. A variety of models are involved including the D100. The issue in this recall revolves around the potential that a piece of hardware may break. Because the particular piece of hardware holds the mower-blade brake assembly, if it does break, the mower's blades would not stop spinning as quickly as they are supposed to.

The second recall concerns the D100 model only. Here again brake hardware is the focus. In this case the issue is potential breakage of the hardware designed to connect the transmission housing and brake assembly which could result in brake failure. The 5,200 lawn tractors involved in this recall were available for purchase by consumers starting in October 2010 in some big box home improvement stores and John Deere dealers. The sale of the equipment ceased last month.

Though in many cases people injured while using a defective product can file a civil suit seeking damages, fortunately, at the time the recalls were issued, no injuries have been reported in either recall.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, "Deere Recalls Thousands of Lawn Tractors," Mia Lamar, Sept. 14, 2011