Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

History of Dillard's escalator to unfold

A lawsuit over a girl's injury t Dillard's takes on the history of a down escalator dome call the "meat grinder."

By JAMIE THOMPSON
Published January 11, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - On one of the busiest shopping days of the year, the Friday after Thanksgiving, a mother browsed the Dillard's at Tyrone Square Mall with her three children.

As the Seminole family walked past the escalator, 5-year-old Kerriana Johnson stepped toward it.

"Get away from the escalator," said the girl's mother, Lori Medvitz, according to court records.

It was too late. The down escalator sucked off Kerriana's shoe without stopping. Kerriana instinctively reached down to retrieve her shoe, and her fingers got stuck, lawyers say.

The cast aluminum steps, weighing 80-90 pounds, crushed down on Kerriana's hand and sliced off three of her fingers, according to court records detailing the incident on Nov. 29, 2002. After the escalator was shut off, police unscrewed steel panels to free Kerriana's hand.

Kerriana's mother is seeking unspecified damages from Dillard's in a negligence lawsuit. Jury selection began Monday, and the 10-day trial is expected to start next Tuesday.

The girl's attorneys say that Dillard's 30-year-old down escalator has been unsafe since as early as 1992, and that employees routinely refer to it as the "meat grinder" and the "crusher." It is the only down escalator used by the public, carrying customers from the women's department to the purses and perfume counters downstairs.

Attorneys say hundreds of people have had problems with the same escalator snagging their shoes.

The people would hobble one-footed over to the shoe department and receive a free pair of shoes. One Dillard's shoe clerk said she replaced as many as six to seven pairs of shoes in one week because of escalator problems.

Dillard's attorneys admit the store has had a "large number of shoe entrapments." But before Kerriana Johnson, no one had been seriously hurt, they say.

In Kerriana's case, Dillard's thinks she was playing on the escalator. They say her mother was negligent in not watching her closely enough.

Although the escalator did not have the most current safeguards, it wasn't required to under state law, Dillard's lawyers say.

The escalator has moved hundreds of thousands of people in recent years, said Dillard's lawyer Bob Stoler, and this was "the only tragedy."

* * *

Escalators, in use since 1900, are generally safe, experts say. More than 90-billion people ride 30,000 escalators in the United States each year. Of those, roughly 7,300 people are injured, 35 percent of them children, according to the national Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation.

While the majority of the injuries are not serious, a number of children have lost fingers, feet or toes, experts say.

Another 5-year-old girl eventually lost part of her toe after catching it in an escalator in 1997 at a different Tyrone Square store, Burdines.

Even if an escalator is maintained well and works flawlessly, it is possible for someone to get hurt, said EESF executive director Ray Lapierre.

"You don't want to tempt fate by misusing an escalator," Lapierre said.

But lawyers for Kerriana Johnson say Dillard's had plenty of warning that someone was going to get seriously hurt on the escalator.

The down escalator, built by a company called Montgomery (now named KONE), was installed at Dillard's in 1973. Its 72 steps can move more than 300 people at a time, lawyers say. The escalator worked fine until at least 1992, when Dillard's stopped using Montgomery employees to service its escalators and began using its own staff, say Kerriana's lawyers.

Compounding the problem of an inexperienced staff, they say, was the fact that the metal track on the escalator had become warped, with one side drooping down.

To repair it, Dillard's employees used pocket change - nickels, dimes and pennies - to even out the track, lawyers say.

* * *

A big problem was an illegal gap in the spot where the escalator steps meet the floor, Kerriana's lawyers say.

If you got caught in the gap, as big as a half-inch, your shoe was gone, lawyers say. Maintenance staffers would find shoes, shoestrings, bottoms of dresses, pants legs, hems of pants legs and jewelry in the escalator shaft, the lawyers say.

One shoe clerk told lawyers that he, too, had his foot caught in the escalator, the same spot where Kerriana was hurt.

Several shoe clerks said they had helped dozens of customers pick out a new pair of shoes because of escalator damage.

Dillard's would report those shoes to vendors as "damaged goods" so Dillard's wouldn't have to pay for them, lawyers say.

"The ladies shoe department," said Kerriana's lawyer, Justin Johnson, "is where they fix the escalator problems."

Lawyers said Dillard's could have installed a new escalator for $150,000 but didn't, even though it spent roughly $12.5-million on a store refurbishment in the early 1990s, lawyers said.

Dillard's also disregarded state law and did not report the majority of escalator incidents to the state, attorney Johnson said.

In response, Dillard's attorneys said store employees did not try to cover up injuries, adding that Kerriana's was the first serious one.

"There were no prior or subsequent serious injuries," said attorney Stoler.

He said there was nothing wrong with Dillard's employees servicing the escalator, and that the state, too, had performed periodic inspections and given the escalator a clean bill of health.

He admitted that the store had failed to report incidents to the state, he but said it was because employees misunderstood state law.

Dillard's may not have had the most up-to-date escalator equipment - including safety devices that make it instantly shut down. But it is not required to under state law, Stoler said. The company has spent tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade and maintain its escalator, he said.

--Jamie Thompson can be reached at 727 893-8455. Send e-mail to jthompson@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 11, 2005, 01:31:20]