A major clothing retailer has agreed to pay a six figure lump sum settlement after being sued because of a defective pair of sneakers that caused a three year old Orthodox Jewish girl to trip and fall, resulting in a serious laceration that required plastic surgery.
According to papers filed on Tuesday in Brooklyn State Supreme Court, Adina Kleinman was wearing a pair of almost new sneakers that her mother, Chaya, had ordered online from The Gap, on November of Last year, when she tripped a month later in December and fell, hitting her head against the corner of a kitchen cabinet. Mrs. Kleinman said that she had noticed prior to the incident that the rubber outsole of the metallic logo trainers, which had been worn approximately five times, had separated from the toe cap of the right shoe and was “angered and frustrated” by the defective footwear.
“As soon as I helped her up I noticed a deep gash on the left side of her forehead,” Mrs. Kleinman alleged in the court papers. “I quickly ran over and placed clean paper towels on the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding.”
The Kleinmans called 911 and Adina and her parents were taken to Coney Island Hospital where the two centimeter diagonal laceration was cleaned and bandaged. With no plastic surgeon on duty at the hospital, the Kleinmans got a referral from their pediatrician to a plastic surgeon who stitched up the cut whose depth was determined to be “extending to [the] frontal bone.” The wound, classified in court papers as “severe” and “permanent,” later became infected and was drained by the same plastic surgeon six days later.
While The Gap no longer sells the metallic logo trainers, court documents show that seven of the 20 reviews for this particular sneaker were the lowest possible rating, with five customers saying they had experienced the same separation in just a few wearings.
The Kleinmans will be receiving a single payout of $125,000 of which $5,000 will be set aside for future plastic surgery if needed and $40,000 will go to pay associated legal fees. The remaining $80,000 will go into an interest bearing savings account held jointly by Chaya and Adina Kleinman with no withdrawals permitted before Adina’s 18th birthday without a court order, other than for Adina’s income taxes or medical expenses not covered by insurance.
According to court papers, Mrs. Kleinman said that she and her husband felt that the award “represents an excellent recovery for Adina” and that “Adina’s interests are best served by the settlement.”
