Parents sue over Hatchimals that don’t hatch

The name says it all: Hatchimal. But when the latest toy craze — a stuffed animal that hatches from an egg — failed to perform, one parent decided to fight back.

Jodie Hejduk of Bakersfield, California, filed a lawsuit seeking class action on Jan. 19 against Hatchimals' parent company, Spin Master Corp., after she says the toy she purchased did not hatch. And, according to the suit, neither did a lot of others.

In the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in in the Eastern District of California, Spin Master is charged with spoiling the holidays on its toy that was so hard to find that some were selling on the “black market … for around $350, or approximately seven times more than the retail price.”

“For the few children who were lucky enough to receive a Hatchimal, many were left disappointed when their Hatchimal failed to live up to its name,” the suit states. “Despite Spin Master’s representations that the toy would ‘hatch,’ many Hatchimals did not hatch.” 

“Spin Master knew that the ‘hatching’ was one of the primary draws of the toy. One of the company’s senior vice presidents recognized that getting the toy to hatch ‘resonates well with kids’ and that since children do not know what is inside of the egg ‘they get excited about what they may get.’ This excitement was replaced with extreme disappointment for the many children when their Hatchimals did not hatch.”
The suit is seeking a jury trial.