What a crock
Stupid lawsuit of the day: Son hurt, Pa. woman sues Crocs firm.
A Pennsylvania mother yesterday filed a multimillion-dollar federal lawsuit against the makers of the popular Crocs footwear after her 6-year-old son’s shoe was caught and trapped in an escalator at the National Aquarium in Baltimore this spring, mangling his right big toe.
Kerry Burdick, who lives in Eagleville, Pa., claims Colorado-based Crocs Inc. knew its foam clogs were unsafe for escalator travel yet did nothing to warn the public, according to the lawsuit, which seeks more than $7.5 million in damages. It was filed yesterday morning in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Next up: Parents start suing shoelace-makers when their kids trip over untied laces that didn’t include user warnings.
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What is sad is they will win or crocs will settle.
ugh
Faux News alert:
lgm’s feeling got hurt – threatens lawsuit.
Film at 11:00
Ka-ching! Bailout program for idiots via the legal system.
negligant parent.
should be sued by croc manufacturer for liable.
I am really going to get hammered on this one, but here goes. It is the parents’ responsibility to provide their children with adequate and safe wear. It doesn’t take a genius to have known from the way Crocs are designed that they are not suitable for all things. The mother put those detestable things on her son. She is more culpable than the manufacturer. I am soooooo irritated over these suits… take responsibility , parents. Oh, I am a dad, so don’t go there.
My wife and kid’s have been using Croc’s since we went to Disney this summer. They were pretty expensive (of course, like an idiot, I bought them at Disney because there were alot of aching feet in the evening.)
After 6 months of listening to them talk about how comfortable they are, I wish I’d bought a pair for myself.
At no time in these past 6 months have we had a problem at escalators with them, but then, my wife and kids aren’t STUPID.
Can we say “tort reform, loser pays”?
People continue filing these lawsuits because juries continue to hand out checks.
Money grubber.
But the bottom-feeder still gets paid.
Have you seens the billboeards yet?
WhocanIsue.com
So, now you now why we are in this fix – tort law and greed.
She’s too freakin stupid to keep her kid on the center of an escalator step, and it could cost Croc’s million…
How do you compete with institutionalized stupidity?
The number of lawyers should be limited by population; like representatives to congress. The number of suits should also be limited.
This will never happen because lawyers get elected to the executive and legislative branches when they are already members of the judicial branch. I can plead my case pro se. I can even have a next friend act as counsel, but he cannot plead my case because he isn’t a lawyer.
If we could keep lawyers out of the executive (except for attorneys general) and the legislative branches, we’d be better off.
Not by me. But then, every parent knows — or at least is supposed to know that you don’t wear them in areas that could pose a threat. Besides, what about the “hold your child’s hand” routine?
One of my 13 children wears those hideous-looking attention-grabbers. I don’t let her go beyond the home with them unless she uses them at the YMCA pool.
Parental responsibility. What a concept!
I was hoping that link was a joke.
It’s not.
I love my Crocs, I have several pairs in different styles, and my daughter does too. They never give me blisters, have great support for hours of walking, and hose off after gardening. I can even throw them in the washer when they get dirty. And they don’t stink from my daughter’s stinky ballet feet. The fleece-lined Mammoths are on my wish list.
These people have been sueing Crocs for years now, ridiculous.
Crocs should do research on escalator and shoe/foot injuries. I bet they would find far more incidents of injuries from flip-flops than any other shoe. But then most flip-flops don’t have a brand name someone could sue.
This actually happened to me when I was a kid. It wasn’t crocs, but a pair of tennis shoes. Didn’t hurt my foot, but ripped the rubber toe right off. It happened because I let my feet slide off of the elevator instead of stepping off.
When I was a kid, if you did something dumb, you learned a lesson, didn’t do it again. Today, if you do something dumb, you sue somebody.
“If all else fails, read the instruction manual.”
7.5M?? That’s some big toe he’s got.
That mother and her child should be removed from the gene pool.
Makes perfect sense to blame an inanimate object instead of parental carelessness.
I recently overheard two personal-injury attorneys congratulate themselves on their career choice (considering the bad economy). They reasoned that with money being tight, people will be even more eager to sue than usual. It was sickening.
I was at a mall and a child got her bare foot caught in an escalator. My
husband and I were on the escalator and I had to stop people from coming
down the steps to try to help. It helped that I was the bookkeeper/office
manager for the accounting dept for an elevator company that also serviced
escalators as well as elevators. We were below her and knew that the weight
of one person was enough to crush her foot which was caught between the
“steps” and the side of the escalator. I know that no matter what footwear or lack of footwear has no bearing on whether or not you will get caught in an escalator, because if you are behaving yourself while riding it, you will not get caught by the escalator. So, it was more than likely the Mothers fault that the child was caught. However, in todays society, court is seen as as the lottery. Sue and get an enormous award!
I just hope that the judge and or jury are smarter about what happened than
they normally seem to be. It was not the shoes or the escalators fault!
Human Error!!!
what about the parents who are suing the school for kicking their daughters off the cheerleading team after they took nude picture of themselves with their cell phones & sent them around. Are they going to sue cell phone manufacturers next? How about a little parental responsibility???
Sheesh
This kid’s mother should be sued by the Escalator company for not teaching him how to get off of an escalator.
Like he should lift feet up and step over the plate as the cable goes under it (not sure how better to describe it). Kids who stand there as it drags them across the plate at the top/bottom learn pretty fast that it might not be a good idea, particularly if you leave your laces long or untied.
I’ve learned that years ago and I never sued anyone!
I might have reconsidered if I knew I could get 7.5 Million dollars though.
There are several of them in the greater Jacksonville area — just on my way home from work. And what is the picture? A business man slipping on a banana peel.
Sheesh!
And one more thing. It’s supposed to be Whom can I sue? Proper English for the lawyer types, and all that.
They are all over South Florida as well. You know they are getting hundreds of calls a day.
P.S. thank god Mel Matrini-ez is leaving. You run, you get my vote!
Last Sunday I was digging around in a box looking for something and I cut my thumb on a hunting knife in there.
Does anyone know a good lawyer?
And I don’t wanna hear none of you talking about why I didn’t have the knife in a scabbard! It ain’t my fault a sharp knife ain’t in no scabbard!
I got a nasty sausage splatter burn this a.m. cooking breakfast, can I sue Porky Pig?
a little math, average lifespan for male children of average intellect which this child may not qualify is 75. he is 6 now, so he has 69 years to go. 7.5 million/69 = $108,695. per year for his entire life from today onward. do you make 108k in your job? for a sore toe? lawyers are just leeches, the problem is juries give these awards, which perpetuates these moronic suits.
We’ve lost our right to be stupid in America. There’s collusion between these bottom-feeding lawyers bringing frivolous suits, the judges that don’t throw them back in their faces for wasting the court’s time, and the juries who vicariously stick it to ‘the man’.
No, AJ but you can sue the energy company that
powers your stove. After all, if the stove didn’t work,
you would not have been cooking sausage, right?
When you consider that lawyers that take contingency cases take a
minimum 35% off the top of the award and then add in all of the extras
that they can conjure up, that toe would not be as major a windfall as the
lawyer has convinced the Mother that it will be.
They constantly troll the media and internet looking for cases; especially
class action lawsuits.
I get so tired of their ads on tv, their ads on billboards alongside the
highways and seeing their ads if I use the yellow pages to look up anything. Lawyers ads are everywhere!
I think Al Gore needs to stir up some interest in escalator redesign.
Or the boy’s mother should tell her child to be careful when riding escalators.
MNUSMCDavid::::
YOU CALLED MY FAV SHOE
detestable
that hurts, worse than getting my toes crushed in an elevator.
my fav shoes & you called them detestable…
It’s the bankruptcy lawyer commercial’s that drive me insane. They’re far more prevalent than these frivolous lawsuits.
Well, of course, if some personal injury lawyer can deduce if there’s a great chance of getting an out of court settlement.
Anyone involved in the manufacture, distribution, or sales of said product are targets if there can be a sizable
settlementattorney fee possible.More likely, she’ll sue the escalator company. If she hasn’t already.
Common sense and personal responsibilty used to prevail in this country until personal injury attorneys figured out there was easy money to be made with the assistance of sympathetic judges and juries filled with stupid people out to “stick it to” the “rich” businesses.
Yeah, and the radio ads, on Christian stations no less, that target people with huge credit card debt to negotiate with the card companies for settling their debt for pennies on the dollars owed also irritate me.
Irresponsiblilty reigns – and pays off these days.
Ow! I poked myself in the eye while sipping my iced tea with the spoon still in the cup! I’m suing Nestea, Oneida, the makers of this cup, the stores where I bought these dangerous items, … um, anyone else I can gouge?
Chap?
The ones that really really irk me are the ones that pay
hospital employees to notify them when someone comes into the er after a bad car wreck or some kind of accident (preferably industrial), etc.
This is OT but has anyone seen this?
PirateLady
Awww! I’m sorry…. I never have gotten into those Crocs. I’ve tried them and they’re not impressive in my mind. Trust me, I love my feet and know how to take care of them ( 18 months in Nam does that to you)and I have never thought Crocs that great nor do they look good. But then, keep in mind, this is a forum of opinions, and yours is as good as anyone. The Mom still needs to be held accountable, though.
I am not, nor have ever been a personal injury attorney.
However…
Personal injury attorneys fill an essential role. I am not going to go into it here, I am not going to defend obviously frivolous lawsuits, and I am not going to say that there is no need for tort reform.
However…
States often have laws preventing p.i. attorneys from approaching clients while they are still hospitalized, etc…on the notion that it is reprehensible to approach and solicit people when they are in a vulnerable position. Almost invariably, the law says noting about the ability of insurance companies to talk to the injured and offer up a quick settlement.
Who do you think lobbies for these laws that are suposedly meant to “protect” the injured and why?
that should say “potential clients”.
I agree that there is a need for Personal Injury lawsuits.
However, the $3800 my dad got when the pharmacy put eardrops in my mom’s eyedrops is a far cry from $7.5 million for a broken or damaged big toe.
The key word here is ‘frivolous’.
This reminds me, didn’t all this nonsense start when someone sued McDonald’s because they spilled coffee on their lap and the coffee was hot? Unbelievably ridiculous then, unbelievably ridiculous now.
You mean the one where McDonalds was making their coffee way too hot to be safe, way above industry standard, and knew it was way too hot and already had reams of reports of incidents of people being injured by their dangerously hot coffee, yet willfully ignored such reports of injury from their way too hot coffee, and knew that people were likely to spill and burn themselves exactly as the plaintiff did?
That case?
This is actually a perfect example of two things:
1) the positive role injury lawsuits can play in making corporations responsible for their actions
2) why its a good idea to know all the facts of a case, rather than the hype, before commenting on it.
My 3yo thinks riding the escalator is great fun. I have always stood behind her on the step, hands under her arms, ready to lift her up should she stumble. It’s called having common sense. But I guess if we all possessed it, a lot of personal injury lawyers would be out of business.
No, it got started at least back in the ’70’s. That’s when I noticed personal injury lawsuits really gaining traction.
I recall a case back then when a professor at a local university, here in the L.A. area who sued a lawnmower manufacturer because he had reached under his gas mower while the motor, and the blade was running, to remove a clump and had a few fingers hacked off.
He claimed the manufacturer should have had a warning on the mower that is was dangerous to put your hand under it while the blade was moving!
Of course the sympathetic jury bought his claim and awarded him several hundred thousands. After all, the manufacturer really should have served notice of such dangers and could easily afford to pay the poor suffering prof!
And from cases such as that arose a huge increase in personal injury lawsuits and idiot warnings labels on practically everything.
Being the lawyer that you are, I am sure you could come up with similar circumstances for a multitude of frivolous cases. Coffee is hot, don’t ride in a car with it in your lap.
Regardless of that particular case, even you would have to admit that cases such as the one MM refers to in this entry are beyond the pale ridiculous. There is no personal responsibility anymore, it’s always someone else’s fault, even when it’s not.
Amen, mom2jack. Most accidents on escalators and in elevators are caused by carelessness and inattention. I have seen parents let their children that
are too young to do so, get onto escalators by themselves. One woman tried to blame a man behind
her, when her small boy fell onto the escalator. It was
because he did not pick up his feet when getting on,
but what do you expect from someone who has only
been walking a year or so.
We need a loser pays system…
I despise crocs and their knockoffs.
Also, I paid the cost of admission to get into the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It was crowded with a bunch of kids pressed all about me, mostly wearing crocs. I couldn’t see nor enjoy a thing. I want to sue them for that money back. That’s all I want.
And 40 years ago “Coffe is hot, don’t ride in a car with it in your lap. As an adult, you should know better. Case dismissed,”
would have been the answer from a sensible judge.
I am going to write a book, “Everyday Living for Dummies a/k/a Common Sense” and include all these nonsense warnings. You know, don’t breathe under water, don’t stick your hand in a moving fan, know what you are eating before you scarf it down in the fast food restaurant every day, etc.
Yeah, the one where some dumb woman put a cup of hot coffee, knowing it was hot, in her lap and tried to drive. Then wants to sue someone when it spills on her.
A NORMAL, SENSIBLE, person would have thought:”Gee, that was a dumb thing for me to do. I should be more careful.”
But, a STUPID IDIOT thinks:”I’m gonna sue McDonalds for serving me the hot coffee I asked them to serve me, for not telling me that I shouldn’t put it in my lap while driving!”
dj, the people that need to read that book, would not read it. Still, sounds
like a good idea.
Or maybe…”McDonalds, you know that people drive with your coffee and even encourage as such because you serve it through a drive through window. Why then, would you continue to serve a product that, while typically served hot, is served by you way hotter than what could be considered safe? And further, why would you continue to do so when YOU KNEW MANY PEOPLE WERE BEING SEVERELY BURNED BY YOUR PRODUCT? As a sophisitcated company you knew (not even should have know) you were creating a product that was dangerous in any case and even moreso when used in an entirely predictable and even encouraged manner. You lose. Judgment for plaintiff.”
Seeing as most cases that go to jury verdict are won by the plaintiff, I think you might be piling it on the people you mean to help, there.
Because McDonald’s is known for researching, and responding to what their customers want. And, ta-da, most of their customers wanted HOTTER COFFEE!
People, also want cheaper cars, but that does not excuse a manufacturer from selling a patently unsafe one.
And, by the way, I myself have burned my tongue on McDonald’s hotter coffee, being the impatient person I am, not sipping carefully and slowly.
If the coffee was hotter than most people wanted and made their complaints known, McDonald’s would have resolved the issue by providing their coffee less hot.
I hate escalators. During a power outage I was trapped on one for 2 hours!!!!
Locally, Belinda Skelton, a show producer for the Neal Boortz radio show here in Atlanta, also had a son whose foot got managled. She has filed a lawsuit also, but rather then seeking mega millions she is only seeking redress on the medical bills.
Suing has become the newest version of playing the lottery.
There are people involved in the stampede at that Wal Mart that are suing Wal Mart. Probably to convince the cops they weren’t part of the problem but also because they are gambling Wal Mart will pay off rather then continue to suffer the PR nightmare this is causing.
They contributed to killing a man and forcing a woman to deliver prematurely and now they are going to cash in.
Cheap cars and hot coffe don’t mix well.
For some really good warning labels go here.
LOL. Those are good: )
I’ve seen some crocs eaten by escalators. Also sneakers that the mom evidently bought oversized — kids grow fast.
I think that Crocs might specifically have a problem by their design with escalators. It’s more than the normal warning for sneakers and flip-flops.
A suit in this case is reasonable, imo.
I also think escalators could be made much more safe. They seem to have technology pretty much unchanged since the 60’s.
#62…you are kidding, right?
He-he, somehow I knew this would turn into the McDonalds case…..
Its pretty much your fault Aloha. You dragged me into this. I refuse to take responsibility for it.
Coffee cannot be served hotter that 212 degrees farenheit, the boiling point of water at sea level. You boil water to make coffee, therefor, boiling water is hot. Macdoos also has parking for cars. Are they to assume that a person is going to put coffee between their legs just because they drove to the store? Getting sued because you burnt your vagina by placing hot coffee next to your vagina is frivolous, Chap. Coffee is a dangerous product? Macdoos did not place that “dangerous product” where it did not belong.
Yipe! Makes you real nervous about ever using one again!
#68 … /whoosh , ma’am, very /whoosh
Maker of Craftsman hammers,
Makes about as much sense to me.
Look, put a hot cup of anything between your legs in a moving vehicle and you’re stupid.
“Where’s your sign?”
Here’s an idea: start wearing big girl shoes when you’re out in public.
SUE HIM!
Pennsylvania.
Murtha and B Hussein can bash and insult these people beyond belief and they don’t seem to care…they even elect or re-elect some of the worst people in the country.
Lots of weird news coming from PA the last few years.
What the heck is wrong with PA these days?
My family started Boalsburg PA almost two hundred years ago but I’m embarrassed to admit any heritage to PA now.
Maybe all their strings are loose up there.
cicero, dexter, et al…
I can see we are not going to agree on this, so I will just have to take consolation in the fact that I am right and all of you are wrong.
You’re right. We disagree.
I have to agree with Chapoutier. Until you know all the details of a case, it is impossible to know if the manufacturer is liable, or if the plaintiff is filing a frivolous lawsuit.
It could have been worse. 55 years ago my cousin (five at the time) decided to sit down on the “moving stairs”. The metal kind with the very thin metal tread and metal teeth at the exit. Needless to say his little rear end was chewed up. Rule number one – watch your kid!
I take full responsibility. Where’s my bailout?
chap
please , please, please… use common sense in your law philosophy. I went to law school and did not pass bar because I used my beliefs in a static Constitution to answer my questions… I never looked back. Victims are questionable at all times. I wasn’t going to practice law to make money….. there is the difference in philosophy. If I’m the fool, so be it…. we need more fools and less barristers. Shakespeare was right, you know.
I saw on fox news this morning a bunch of high school cheerleaders posed naked, sent the pictures to their boy friend’s cell phones, whereby the boys promptly passed the pictures around (imagine that). Anyway the school suspended the cheerleaders, and the parents are suing the school.
Just another day in the land of Oz.
I thought feelings only occurred in higher life forms.
Here’s one I just read. Woman Sues PA Sports Bar Over Toilet Seat Break.
Apparently a woman was sitting on a toilet seat which broke and dumped her
into the toilet where she was stuck for about 20 minutes. She weight 130 to
140 lbs and had had hip surgery. Guess being stuck in the throne is going to
be work several million according to her and her lawyer.
If I was another female customer that needed to use the necessary and she was
clogging it up with her body, I would have sued her for making me uncomfortable. LOL
I wear crocs all the time. I have five pairs in different colors. I have had terrible foot problems the past few years and could not stand for more than an hour without terrible pain. I now can walk around all day in those ugly things. I don’t care what they look like, I love them! I have never stumbled or tripped while wearing them and I use escalators a lot. I wonder if the child had the wrong fit. Whatever, it is the parent’s responsibility to make sure the child is safe on the escalator.
Seeing as how con law makes up a tiny tiny percentage of the questions on a bar exam, I suspect this was not the only cause.
Its in the mail with your Chateau Petrus. I am sure you’ll be getting it any day now.
Chapoutier
oh Yes… admin and copyright were crap as well.
So when your kid sticks a knife in the electric socket, who do you sue?
The electric company?
The knife manufacturer?
The contractor who installed the electrical socket?
Or how about the mortgage company or the carpet manufacturer?
Are you allowed to sue Fluffy’s trainer when he comes over and pees on your kids smoking hand?
Your bar had admin and copyright law?
Good god.
Cali?
Oh Hey!!!!
That was you I was talking to to keep me from gettng bored! Say, how did you like those Cinnabuns that that one guys threw up to us?
chap yep….Michigan…. and MN…. but I survive.
#40…..yes, I have seen that.
One year, maybe fifteen years ago around this time of year I was in a Mall and a child got his foot caught in the escalator. I heard his screams from the other end of the mall. By the time I arrived there EMT’s were already there. But his screams went on for some time.
They were awful. I’m thankful I did not have to be the first to get there to help him.
It’s really not even the mom’s fault, the kid is 6 – it’s his own stupid fault. He was probably lazily shuffling his feet. You can hold their hands all you want, but unless you’re going to reach down and pick up their feet for them too, there’s only so much you can do for them. By that age, they either know what to do or will learn a very valuable lesson.
What galls me is when parents refuse to hold their child responsible for his or her actions. Life is cold and cruel sometimes, let them learn how to handle it while you’re still there by their side.
A friend of mine recently fretted that her 1 yr old son was hitting his 4 yr old sister and basically being a pest. The sister was trying her best to be patient but the mom contemplated telling her daughter to hit him back. I told her to go ahead because her daughter would learn to defend herself and her son would learn his limits. Better for him to learn it from his sister, with his mom there to referee, than from picking on the wrong kid when he goes off to school.
I remember when people got along just fine with “sensible shoes”. Now we got idiots wearing idiot shoes. Lord, save us from fad footware.
I turned on my TV this morning and found that the show I wanted to watch wasn’t on! In fact, it doesn’t come on until MONDAY NIGHT!
I’m taking down NBC.
Everybody back off… I’m from New York, I’ve got a lawyer and I know how to use it.
Here is the reality check folks. When you buy a product in the U.S., 18% of the cost goes to long term liability insurance. That’s a 18% welfare check to people who are mostly under deserving leaches.