Washington, DC, Sept. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has agreed with the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Dreamland Baby Co. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission that CPSC’s publication and refusal to retract a statement disparaging weighted infant sleep products were not supported by the administrative record. Judges must use the administrative record to decide whether an agency’s actions are legal. The statement claims that weighted sleep swaddles and blankets, like those produced by NCLA client Dreamland Baby and many other companies, are unsafe, a claim CPSC has not justified, and the agency has denied Dreamland’s petition to retract it.

As NCLA argued, the court found that it had jurisdiction to review CPSC’s decisions to publish and not retract the statement. It also found that CPSC did not meet the APA’s minimal requirement that the Commission provide a “satisfactory explanation” for making the statement and denying Dreamland’s retraction request. The court now orders CPSC to investigate and explain why it made those decisions.

CPSC’s statement has pushed Dreamland to the brink of going out of business. The small company’s founder and CEO Tara Williams created its first weighted wearable sleep bag for her own son, going on to help more than a million families worldwide. More than 3.5 million of these types of products were sold in a decade.

However, then-CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka—fired by President Trump last year along with two of his colleagues—made a proposal in fall 2023 to “pursue a mandatory standard to address foreseeable risks posed by” weighted infant sleep products. CPSC rejected that proposal by a 3-1 vote that November, with then-Chairman Alexander Hoehn-Saric saying the agency had not conducted enough research to pursue rulemaking on the issue in 2024. Still, CPSC published a warning on its website that parents and caregivers should not use weighted blankets or swaddles, never adequately explaining why.

To post the warning initially and deny Dreamland’s request to retract it, CPSC blindly relied on recommendations taken up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health that the products were unsafe for infant sleep. The recommendations were originally made by a private third-party organization, and CDC and NIH did not investigate their validity. The court recognized that CPSC cannot relieve itself of its obligations to determine whether product safety statements are accurate and not misleading by merely linking to those statements.

NCLA released the following statement:

“When the CPSC speaks, parents and caregivers listen. They deserve to know CPSC has done its own homework. The court agreed, finding the agency failed to explain why its warning about weighted infant sleep products was accurate and rejecting CPSC’s view that it could adopt other agencies’ guidance without independent review. We look forward to a transparent review that is driven by evidence and data, not conjecture.”
— Kara Rollins, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the case page here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights. 


Joe Martyak
New Civil Liberties Alliance
703-403-1111
joe.martyak@ncla.legal

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