AuburnTxTiger
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The risk of a child's head being above the manufacturer's design limit could be spinal cord injury resulting in possible paralysis, head injury resulting in possible brain damage, or death.
This website http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=30201 has a good visual of a child at the 1" limit - along with instructions on how to properly measure a child in a car seat. Although this is Just My Opinion, it makes sense to me that the 1" rule is used to accommodate children who grow proportionally differently from the statistical norm. (A tall child who is all legs with a short torso may fit where a shorter child who is long waisted may not.) We do not truly know Cooper's height, but I think it is safe to assume that he was at least at the 50th percentile based on the size of his parents. (He may well have been higher or lower on the charts.) a child in the 50th percentile would have exceeded the manufacturer's height limit by at least 3.75 inches. Since the height range between the 50th and 90th percentiles at that age is less then 2"' unless Cooper had unusual body proportions, he was unlikely to have fallen within the 1" rule. I believe it will be shown at trial that Cooper had not properly fit into that car seat for many months.
Thanks for researching this.