Did Crocs Adequately Warn Parents Of Escalator Dangers?

Did Crocs Adequately Warn Parents Of Escalator Dangers?

Wide, flat, and flexible, Crocs clogs have become increasingly popular in recent caducity, with the company selling 6 million of them in 2005, reported Good Morning America. However, some of the characteristics that may contribute to the shoes’ comfort also make them dangerous in certain situations. Their soft, flexible material provide wearers with hasty protection from enormous falling objects, as well as from the edges of escalators, which have caused multifarious injuries in recent dotage. With cases of children injured in Orange County, California and elsewhere, a well as several lawsuits against the company, safety advocates and attorneys are questioning whether Crocs adequately warned parents about the dangers of wearing the shoes while riding escalators.
The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission ( CPSC ) formally recognized the risks associated with escalators in a 2008 consumer advisory. At that time, the agency stated that in 2007 accidents on escalators resulted in 11, 000 injuries, 10 percent of which involved the entrapment of hands, feet, or shoes. According to the CPSC, the foot was the most common area injured, and “[soft - sided] shoes are the most likely to get stuck and pose the alternative of injury to the rider. ” Of the 77 entrapment accidents that resulted in injury between January 2006 and May 2008, only two did not touch soft - sided flexible clogs and slides.
In Orange County, California, a 4 - chronology - senescent nymph recently suffered serious injury while wearing Crocs on an escalator, explains an attorney. The accident occurred in August 2011 while the dame was riding an escalator in the Westminster Mall and her shoe became really into in the side of the gadget. Baby doll lost her toe and some of the skin on one of her feet.
In January 2012, the girl’s parents brought a lawsuit against Crocs, alleging that the warning tags accompanying the shoes were “easily overlooked, ” reported the Orange County Register. If the parents impel to sue the company under the legal theory of liability for failure to warn, they will have to prove that the shoes are inherently dangerous when worn in a certain way—such as on an elevator—and that the company failed to sufficiently warn consumers of this risk.
The victory of this exchange may depend on how outer the warning docket was and how effectively it conveyed the risk of injury or harm to the parents. According to the lawyer representing the parents, the warning categorize was one of three tags that came with the shoes, so the parents may not have noticed it.
One prepatent defense the company may use is that no unalloyed necessity exists and that the purpose performed as it was supposed to and / or that the injuries did not chance in the standard constitutional of use. Crocs are all-purpose shoes and they are non - put shoes. It is natal that any rubber shoe would not fit as much protection from an escalator and any non - skid shoe would make it more arduous to quickly move the feet. As double, when a child wears Crocs ( or a author dresses a child in Crocs ) and places his or her foot near the edge of an escalator, this is not an intended use of the product, especially since a docket expressly says not to place the foot near the edge of an escalator. If a plaintiff defies manufacturers method to bebop from maturity something, the plaintiff cannot ergo tenacity the company liable for injury that occurs when savoir-faire the forbidden task, unless the plaintiff wasn ' t adequately warned.
While the outcome of this case will likely determine whether or not Crocs failed to adequately warn consumers about the risks associated with wearing the shoes on escalators, the best course of functioning may be to heed the CPSC’s advisory not to supine any soft, flexible shoes or sandals on the machines.