Teh One Who Knocks
01-27-2012, 10:32 PM
By JAN NORMAN / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
http://i.imgur.com/Tzxvr.jpg
A Westminster couple is suing Colorado shoemaker Crocs Inc., claiming their 4-year-old daughter lost her little toe while wearing the soft clogs in an escalator accident at the Westminster Mall.
Allon and Josephine Motzney are asking $2 million in their lawsuit filed Jan. 26 in federal court in Santa Ana. Their daughter's name is not revealed in the suit.
There have been multiple lawsuits against Crocs dating back to at least 2008 stemming from injuries to children on escalators. The Motzneys' attorney, Andrew Laskin of Robinson & Yablon, P.C. in New York, has handled 13 of the suits, he said.
Another of his current cases involves a Santa Monica child injured on a Boston, Mass., escalator while wearing Crocs. A previous case involved an accident at the Brea Mall. Laskin said that case was settled quickly.
Crocs has not replied to a Register email and phone call seeking comment about the lawsuit and the general controversy surrounding the shoes.
The Motzney lawsuit said that the daughter received her pink child's-sized Crocs as a gift from a relative, who bought them in December 2010. She was wearing the Crocs, which were caught in the side of the escalator in the JCPenney department store on Aug. 13, 2011, the lawsuit said.
Laskin said the girl lost the little toe on her left foot and the skin off the bottom of that foot.
The lawsuit claims that Crocs has known since 2005 that children have been injured while wearing Crocs that "were sucked into the side skirts of moving escalators." The suit cites a June 2008 letter from Crocs to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission acknowledging that Crocs had received 186 claims of escalator injuries.
Crocs puts a warning tag on its children's clogs, Laskin said, but it is one of three tags that are easily overlooked. "We maintain that warning is insufficient."
An article in the July/August 2010 issue of the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics described 17 escalator-related foot injuries of children wearing rubber clogs from 2006 to 2008. The article - which did not name any shoe brand - linked the injuries, all of which happened on the side of the escalator rather than at the top or bottom, to the broad shape of the clogs' toe area and the softness of the rubber that is crushed by moving escalator steps.
http://i.imgur.com/Tzxvr.jpg
A Westminster couple is suing Colorado shoemaker Crocs Inc., claiming their 4-year-old daughter lost her little toe while wearing the soft clogs in an escalator accident at the Westminster Mall.
Allon and Josephine Motzney are asking $2 million in their lawsuit filed Jan. 26 in federal court in Santa Ana. Their daughter's name is not revealed in the suit.
There have been multiple lawsuits against Crocs dating back to at least 2008 stemming from injuries to children on escalators. The Motzneys' attorney, Andrew Laskin of Robinson & Yablon, P.C. in New York, has handled 13 of the suits, he said.
Another of his current cases involves a Santa Monica child injured on a Boston, Mass., escalator while wearing Crocs. A previous case involved an accident at the Brea Mall. Laskin said that case was settled quickly.
Crocs has not replied to a Register email and phone call seeking comment about the lawsuit and the general controversy surrounding the shoes.
The Motzney lawsuit said that the daughter received her pink child's-sized Crocs as a gift from a relative, who bought them in December 2010. She was wearing the Crocs, which were caught in the side of the escalator in the JCPenney department store on Aug. 13, 2011, the lawsuit said.
Laskin said the girl lost the little toe on her left foot and the skin off the bottom of that foot.
The lawsuit claims that Crocs has known since 2005 that children have been injured while wearing Crocs that "were sucked into the side skirts of moving escalators." The suit cites a June 2008 letter from Crocs to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission acknowledging that Crocs had received 186 claims of escalator injuries.
Crocs puts a warning tag on its children's clogs, Laskin said, but it is one of three tags that are easily overlooked. "We maintain that warning is insufficient."
An article in the July/August 2010 issue of the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics described 17 escalator-related foot injuries of children wearing rubber clogs from 2006 to 2008. The article - which did not name any shoe brand - linked the injuries, all of which happened on the side of the escalator rather than at the top or bottom, to the broad shape of the clogs' toe area and the softness of the rubber that is crushed by moving escalator steps.