KC-area mom feared for child after Barbie packaging tested for fentanyl, suit says
A Jackson County mother is suing an Independence discount store after she said she purchased a Barbie for her daughter that was contaminated with illegal drugs.
The suit, filed Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleges that Heather Guier bought her 4-year-old daughter — referred to only as K.G. in documents — the doll on March 20 at Cargo Largo and had no idea that it was a potential danger until police called her the next day.
Lab tests later confirmed, the suit said, that a substance on the Barbie doll packaging was cocaine with trace amounts of fentanyl.
“The Barbie doll packaging was sealed with tape,” the suit said. And when Guier’s daughter tried to open the doll packaging at home, “she could not open it due to the tape.”
“Plaintiff and Plaintiff K.G. both handled the Barbie doll packaging after the purchase,” the suit said. “The Barbie doll packaging remained in Plaintiffs’ home overnight.”
The potency of fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more than heroin and has killed dozens of children in Missouri and Kansas who have ingested it in recent years.
Through her attorney, Kyle Murphy, Guier is suing Recovery Management Corp., which does business as Cargo Largo. Murphy did not respond to a request for further comment. Recovery Management Corp. could not be reached.
The “negligence” of the discount store in allowing a toy to be sold with packaging that had illegal drugs on it caused “severe emotional distress, fear and anxiety,” the lawsuit said.
“Plaintiff feared that Plaintiff K.G. had been exposed to deadly drugs through contact with the contaminated packaging,” it alleges. “Plaintiff continues to suffer emotional distress as a result of the incident.”
A jury trial has been requested.
An alert from police
The mother and daughter “were unaware that the Barbie doll packaging was contaminated with illegal drugs at the time of the purchasing and handling,” the suit said.
Guier received a phone call from the Independence Police Department police the morning after she bought the doll for $14.99 from Cargo Largo, 3232 S. Noland Road.
That same day, Independence Police posted on social media that store workers at Cargo Largo notified officers that Barbies may have been contaminated with fentanyl before they arrived at the store to be sold.
A Star article at that time said police did not say how workers came to know about the possible contamination. The social media post said police had already tracked down most of the dolls.
However, two or three dolls were still unaccounted for. That post has been updated to say the “final package has been secured and is in police custody.”
The police investigation, the lawsuit said, revealed that “fentanyl was discovered taped inside the back packaging of the Barbie dolls.”
After Guier got the call from police, she “immediately became fearful for (her daughter’s) safety.”
‘Extreme and outrageous’
The lawsuit alleges that the discount store was negligent, inflicted emotional distress and violated Missouri’s merchandising practices.
“Defendant failed to warn consumers that products sourced from undeliverable freight shipments and excess inventories posed heightened risks of tampering or contamination,” the suit said. “Defendant misrepresented the safety of the product by offering it for sale as a children’s toy suitable for young children.”
It further accuses the store of failing to “inspect products before offering them for sale despite knowing of contamination risks from its sourcing practices.” The suit said the store didn’t warn consumers of the “known risks posed by products sourced through its supply chain.”
It alleges that Cargo Largo sold products that were “contaminated with $5 million worth of cocaine and fentanyl,” one of which ended up in the hands of a child.
“This conduct was so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the suit said. “ … As a direct and proximate result of Defendant’s conduct, Plaintiffs continue to suffer mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life.”
