An H-E-B supermarket sign, Saturday, April 3, 2021, in San Antonio (Kirby Lee via AP).
A Tennessee family's life changed substantially for the worse when their 3-year-old daughter lost four of her fingers on a "dangerous and defective" escalator after a trip to a popular Texas grocery store chain, a lawsuit filed this week in the Lone Star State alleges.
On March 30, the Williams family went to the H-E-B in Bellaire, a medium-sized city in the Houston metro area.
The young girl entered the supermarket "with no care or worry in the world," but the calculus shifted entirely as she was leaving, according to the lawsuit. While "riding the escalator down with her parents," the girl "stumbled and sat on the escalator step to catch her balance."
Moments later, the girl and her family would be subject to a kind of terror and pain often feared but seldom experienced, though research suggests a steady uptick in escalator-related injuries since the 1990s.
"Unbeknownst to her or her family, the escalator had a large gap between the step and the skirt wall which was large enough for a child's hand to get stuck in," the lawsuit filed on Wednesday reads. "As [the girl] was catching her balance, her fingers on her right hand got stuck between the moving escalator steps and the stationary wall of the escalator and were sucked into the escalator down to the palm of her hand. To her parents' horror, [the girl] could not get her hand out of the moving escalator as she continued toward the bottom despite her parents' desperate attempts to remove her hand."
Safety switches that should have automatically deployed "when her hand got stuck" did not do so, according to the lawsuit. Those switches were allegedly "inoperable" due to the failure of H-E-B and the elevator manufacturer to "maintain, monitor, and keep the escalator in a safe operating condition per its intended design."
The lawsuit graphically recounts the result of the ordeal.
"Horrifically, [the girl's] fingers were eventually amputated by the escalator freeing the remainder of her hand," the filing reads. "Despite the doctors' best efforts, they were unable to reattach [her] fingers resulting in her being left with only her thumb on her right hand."
The lawsuit goes on:
Her parents immediately tried to rescue her and get her out of the moving escalator. Her fingers were fully enveloped between the skirt and the wall of the escalator preventing her from getting released immediately. Instead, as her parents tried to get her hand out of the escalator, her hand remained in the escalator while her parents were trying to carry her to safety. Horrifically, [the girl's] four fingers were torn off and fell into the bottom of the escalator. Her parents had to deal with this sight of their little girl's fingers gone and her hand bleeding profusely.
In all, the little girl "lost her four fingers on her dominant hand," the lawsuit says, attributing the life-changing disfigurement to the Texas grocery store chain and TK Elevator, formerly thyssenkrupp, a company whose U.S. headquarters is located in Atlanta, Georgia.
The plaintiffs say the corporate bad behavior did not end there.
Under Texas law, a safety incident involving an escalator is supposed to be reported to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) within 24 hours and the carrier is supposed to be taken out of service until authorities finish their investigation. But that did not happen, according to the lawsuit.
"Instead, both companies immediately placed the escalator back in service within a few minutes of the incident, conducted undocumented repairs, took possession of evidence, and conducted numerous inspections and replacements prior to reporting the issues to TDLR," according to the 14-page original petition. "Each of these actions spoliated evidence and violated the law despite clearly knowing the statutory requirements for Texas."
The incident was eventually reported to the proper authorities, however, several weeks later, the lawsuit claims.
Specifically, the lawsuit accuses both defendants of premises liability for the allegedly "unreasonably dangerous conditions," of the escalator, negligence for alleged improper monitoring and maintenance of the escalators "in accordance with industry standards," bystander recovery for the "significant shock" that caused the girl's parents "direct emotional impact" by witnessing the grim scene, gross negligence for "conscious indifference to the rights, safety, and welfare" of the Williams family, and spoliation for allegedly failing to report the incident within the statutorily-mandated timeline.
The filing outlines the basic theory of liability, at length:
The escalator was on the property and under the control of HEB. The escalator was manufactured, monitored, and maintained additionally by TKE. The escalator posed a threat of severe danger to customers in the HEB. In addition to the large gap in the side of the escalator, the escalator's skirt switches which are supposed to stop the escalator from moving once they sense an obstruction between the step and the skirt were inoperable on the day of the incident which caused the escalator to continue moving, slicing A.W.'s fingers, instead of causing the escalator to immediately stop. In addition, the escalator was severely undermaintained, and contained the inappropriate comb plates at the end of the escalator which were also missing comb teeth and were compacted with debris. These issues placed the escalator in an unreasonably dangerous condition which ultimately caused A.W.'s injuries. Both HEB and TKE knew or should have known of these conditions and owed nondelegable duties to Plaintiffs to keep and maintain the escalator in a reasonably safe condition.
The lawsuit, filed by attorney Ben Crump, seeks over $1 million in damages for pecuniary loss, past medical expenses, future medical expenses, physical pain and suffering, physical impairment, physical disfigurement, mental anguish and emotional distress, interest, and exemplary damages for the gross negligence claim.
"This tragic incident has forever altered the life of a 3-year-old child and her family," Crump said in a press release. "The defendants failed in their basic duty to keep customers safe, and their negligence resulted in a young child losing her fingers in a horrific incident that could have been avoided with proper maintenance. This was completely preventable."
A spokesperson for the statewide Texas grocery store chain addressed the incident in a statement provided to Law&Crime.
"At H-E-B, we are deeply committed to our customers and their safety," the statement reads. "This was an incredibly unfortunate accident that we are taking seriously. Although, based on our current investigation of this matter, the escalator was serviced by a third-party company, we will do our best to support the family through this difficult time."
Law&Crime also reached out to TK Elevator for comment on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.