Kmart ordered to pay $15k to family over asbestos-contaminated play sand

Elle Chrisp and David Dingwall bought play sand for their twins at a Kmart store in Christchurch. It contained tremolite asbestos. The discovery set off a chain of urgent, costly decisions: testing, relocation, remediation, replacement of contaminated household items. When they sought compensation from Kmart, the retailer resisted. So they took the case to the Disputes Tribunal and won—a $15,000 ruling that has become the first of its kind in New Zealand.

The Tribunal's decision was unambiguous. The sand was unsafe. It was not fit for purpose. It failed to meet acceptable quality standards under the Consumer Guarantees Act. Referee Cynthia Hawes was direct in her reasoning: no reasonable parent, knowing asbestos was present in a product meant for children to play with, would have purchased it at all. The quantity or proportion of contamination was irrelevant to that basic fact.

Chrisp and Dingwall could have settled quietly. Consumer NZ noted they were willing to work constructively with Kmart, but they chose not to accept a confidential agreement. They wanted the ruling public. They wanted it on record. Chrisp explained the reasoning plainly: families who had been made to feel they were overreacting needed to see that a tribunal had disagreed. If Kmart had dismissed your claims, she said, that does not have to be the end of it.

The $15,000 covered a range of costs the family had borne. Testing to confirm the contamination. The urgent expense of relocating. Replacing household items that had been exposed. Professional remediation of their property. The loss of amenity—the disruption to their lives, the loss of use of their home during the crisis. Kmart challenged some of these expenses as unnecessary or excessive. The Tribunal rejected those arguments, finding the family's response reasonable and justified, and noting that in at least one instance they had no choice.

Kmart's response, issued through a spokesperson, acknowledged the decision but framed the company's actions as swift and responsible. When the contamination became known, the statement said, Kmart removed affected products from sale, issued recall notices, and supported customers with refunds and disposal guidance based on regulatory advice. The company noted that the Tribunal had rejected the majority of the family's claim, though it acknowledged the award for cleaning and out-of-pocket expenses.

But Gemma Rasmussen, head of research and advocacy at Consumer NZ, saw the case differently. It illustrated how difficult it can be to get redress when a product safety failure occurs—even when a retailer acts to recall the product after the fact. The sand should never have been offered for sale in the first place. Once it was, and once families had purchased it and discovered the contamination, the burden of response fell on them: the testing, the moving, the cleaning, the waiting. The Tribunal's ruling acknowledged that burden and assigned its cost to the company that had sold the product.

This is the first Disputes Tribunal ruling in New Zealand on the recalled sand. It signals that product safety failures can carry significant liability, regardless of how quickly a retailer responds once the problem surfaces. For other families who purchased the same sand and faced similar costs, the ruling offers both precedent and encouragement to pursue their own claims.