When a child loses fingers in an escalator skirt gap or comb plate, two defendants are usually to blame. The maker who built a known entrapment risk and the property owner who let it run broken. Of Counsel to the Soud Law Firm.
Call 904-383-7448Reviewed by Graham W. Syfert, Esq., Florida Bar No. 39104, Of Counsel to the Soud Law Firm. Last updated .
When a child's fingers, foot, or clothing are caught in an escalator skirt gap or comb plate, the claim almost always has two defendants. The first is product and maintenance: the escalator maker or its maintenance contractor for an oversized step-to-skirt gap, missing or hardened skirt brushes, worn comb-plate teeth, or a disabled comb-plate safety switch. The second is premises liability: the mall, airport, or transit owner that kept a defective unit running. In Florida, a product-defect injury claim runs 4 years under section 95.11(3)(d), Florida Statutes, while the premises negligence claim runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(a). A wrongful-death claim runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(e). Because the injured rider is a minor, the limitations clock is generally tolled during minority, but the 12-year statute of repose in section 95.031(2)(b) can still bar claims on older equipment, so the units need to be identified and inspected early. Graham W. Syfert, Esq., handles these cases as Of Counsel to the Soud Law Firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Start with the prayer for relief. If your child's fingers, hand, foot, or clothing were pulled into an escalator skirt gap or comb plate, you likely have two separate claims against two separate defendants. One claim is for a defective and badly maintained escalator. The other is for a property owner that ran that escalator anyway.
These cases are not slip-and-fall cases. An escalator that grabs a small hand has usually failed a published safety measure. The step-to-skirt gap was too wide. The skirt brushes were missing or stiff. The comb-plate teeth were broken. The comb-plate safety switch was bypassed or dead. Each of those is a documented, well-known hazard with a paper trail.
The injured child is the person to root for here. The antagonist is the gap that the industry has known how to close for decades, and the owner that deferred the repair to save money. We name both. We do it as Of Counsel to the Soud Law Firm.
The deadlines are short and they are different for each claim, so the units must be identified and photographed before parts are replaced. Read the deadlines section below first if your clock is running.
An escalator is a moving stair running past a fixed side wall. The narrow space between the edge of each moving step and that stationary side panel is the skirt gap. The toothed metal plate at the top and bottom landings, where the steps disappear into the floor, is the comb plate.
Both places are pinch points. The medical literature is blunt about who gets hurt. About 11,000 escalator injuries happen in the United States each year, and roughly 6 percent involve children, with a mean age around 6.5 years. Amputations are uncommon overall, but when they happen on escalators they fall mostly on children younger than five, and about 92 percent of those amputations are to the hand.
A child sits down on a step, drops a toy, or rides with a soft shoe pressed against the side panel. The friction of the moving step drags the object, the shoe, or the small hand into the gap. As the step climbs or descends, the gap geometry pulls the trapped part deeper.
The industry measures this risk with the Step/Skirt Performance Index, which runs from 0.0 to 1.0 and combines the loaded gap with the friction of the skirt panel. Under the published index, a value above 0.4 is not allowable, and values from 0.15 to 0.4 require skirt deflector brushes. The allowable ceiling has been tightened over time, so an older unit with a wide gap, a high-friction skirt, and no brushes is a unit that should have been corrected.
At the landings, the comb-plate teeth are supposed to mesh into the grooves of each step so nothing can pass between them. When teeth break off or wear down, gaps open. A small finger reaching for a shoelace or a dropped item slides into the gap and meets the shearing edge where the moving step enters the floor.
Comb plates also carry a safety switch that is supposed to stop the escalator when an object jams the teeth. When that switch is broken, bypassed, or slow, the machine keeps running while a child is caught. The combination of broken teeth and a dead comb switch is the worst case, and it appears again and again in the inspection records of these incidents.
Most public escalators in Florida malls, in airports such as Jacksonville International, and in transit stations come from four makers. Otis, Schindler, KONE, and TK Elevator. The same companies, or their authorized contractors, usually hold the maintenance contracts. That dual role matters, because it means the maker often controls both the design and the upkeep.
Identify the unit early. The brand and model are stamped on the equipment, printed on the state inspection certificate posted near the landing, and recorded in the building's elevator and escalator permit file. The model number tells us which safety package the unit shipped with and what the maker's own preventive-maintenance schedule required.
Schindler markets the 9300 as its escalator for commercial and public spaces, and the 9700 for high-traffic settings such as airports, subways, and railroad stations. Schindler advertises that its equipment passes an independent safety check before handover. The question in a real case is whether the installed unit carried working skirt deflectors and a functioning comb-plate switch on the day a child was hurt, and whether the maintenance contractor kept them that way.
Otis publishes its escalator line, including the 506 and 510 commercial units, in its product catalog. As with any maker, the relevant facts are the as-built step-to-skirt clearance, whether skirt brushes were specified and installed, and whether the comb segments and comb switch were maintained to the maker's schedule. We pull the catalog and the maintenance records and compare them.
KONE sells Avert skirt deflector brushes that mount along the skirt panel and are built to fit most escalator makes and models. The existence of an off-the-shelf deflector brush that fits almost any unit undercuts any claim that brushes were impractical. If a child was caught in a skirt gap on a unit with no brushes, the absence of a readily available, brand-supported safety device becomes a central fact.
Florida lets us pursue the escalator on two tracks at once, and we usually do. The tracks have different defendants and different deadlines, so keeping them separate protects the case.
The product and maintenance track targets the maker and the maintenance contractor. The premises track targets the property owner. A jury can find both at fault and apportion responsibility between them under Florida's comparative-fault statute.
Florida recognizes strict products liability. The Florida Supreme Court adopted the doctrine in West v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 336 So. 2d 80 (Fla. 1976), following section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. A seller of a product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user is subject to liability for the physical harm it causes.
An escalator can be defective in design, with a skirt gap or comb geometry that an alternative design would have made safer. It can be defective in manufacture. It can be defective for the failure to provide adequate warnings or guards. And the maintenance contractor can be negligent for letting brushes, comb teeth, and safety switches fall out of working order against the maker's own schedule.
A mall, airport authority, or transit agency owes its riders a duty to keep the premises reasonably safe and to correct or warn of dangers it knew about or should have known about. An escalator with broken comb teeth, a lapsed inspection certificate, or a documented prior repair order is a danger the owner is charged with knowing.
When inspectors flagged a defect and the owner did nothing, the premises claim becomes strong. In one widely reported case at a Smith's Marketplace in Salt Lake City, state inspectors advised the store in September 2015 to repair broken comb teeth, the operating permit had expired 17 days before the incident, and a child's two fingers were severed in September 2017. That sequence is the textbook premises failure.
These are not hypothetical risks. They are recurring, reported events. We study the public records of prior incidents to understand failure modes and to frame the discovery requests in a new case.
In a Chicagoland commercial building, a 5-year-old reached for a toy and his hand was caught between a step and the side of a 42-year-old escalator, then dragged more than 20 feet. He lost two fingers. The case settled in 2024 after six years of litigation, with reported defects including a missing high-mounted emergency stop button and deferred safety upgrades.
At a Smith's Marketplace in Salt Lake City, a child's fingers entered the comb plate through missing or broken comb teeth, and two fingers were severed and could not be reattached. State inspectors had warned the store to repair the teeth in September 2015, and the incident happened in September 2017.
In St. Petersburg, Florida, a 5-year-old named Kerriana Johnson caught her shoe on an escalator at a Dillard's department store, reached down, and her hand was pulled into the mechanism. She lost three fingers, and rescuers removed a plate where the steps descend to free her. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and every escalator and every injury is different.
The deadlines depend on which claim you bring, and Florida renumbered these limitations after House Bill 837 took effect on March 24, 2023, with a further 2024 amendment. We use the current numbering, confirmed against the Florida Legislature's publication of section 95.11 and against the firm's own statute page.
A product-defect personal-injury claim runs 4 years under section 95.11(3)(d), Florida Statutes. A general negligence and premises-liability claim runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(a), Florida Statutes. A wrongful-death claim runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(e), Florida Statutes. Subsection (4) of section 95.11 is now the 3-year medical-debt provision and has nothing to do with these injury claims.
Because the injured rider is usually a child, the limitations period is generally tolled during the minor's minority, which can extend the window. That tolling does not help if the equipment is gone. The 12-year statute of repose in section 95.031(2)(b), Florida Statutes, can bar a products claim on older equipment regardless of the child's age, and escalators are long-lived machines, so older units must be identified and preserved immediately. Comparative fault is governed by section 768.81, Florida Statutes, which since HB 837 bars recovery for a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault. A young child's capacity for fault is a separate and heavily contested question.
These same escalators run in Georgia malls and transit stations, and we serve riders in southeast Georgia. Georgia's framework differs from Florida's and the differences are sharp.
Georgia recognizes strict products liability against manufacturers under OCGA section 51-1-11. Georgia's personal-injury statute of limitations is 2 years under OCGA section 9-3-33. Most important, Georgia imposes a 10-year statute of repose on strict products liability claims that runs from the first sale of the unit, without the broad exceptions Florida allows. On a decades-old escalator, that 10-year repose can extinguish a Georgia strict-liability claim outright, which makes early identification of the unit even more urgent in a Georgia case.
I treat the escalator itself as the most important witness. Before a maker's technician swaps a comb segment or replaces a brush, I want the unit photographed, measured, and the broken parts preserved. A replaced part is destroyed evidence, and I send a spoliation letter the same day I am retained.
I do not let a property owner hide behind its maintenance contractor, and I do not let the contractor hide behind the owner. Florida lets me sue both and lets the jury sort out the percentages under section 768.81, Florida Statutes. Naming both early keeps either from pointing at an empty chair.
I read the inspection file before I read anything else. A lapsed certificate, a prior repair order, or an inspector's note about broken comb teeth turns a defense theme of freak accident into a story of a known hazard ignored. That is the difference between a hard case and a clear one.
I am Of Counsel to the Soud Law Firm. I do not call myself a specialist or the best at this, because the Florida Bar rules forbid that and because the work, not the adjective, is what matters. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
If your child was caught in an escalator skirt gap or comb plate, these first steps protect both the child and the case. The escalator is the most important witness, and parts get replaced fast.
Usually two defendants. The escalator maker or its maintenance contractor for the defect, on a product and maintenance theory, and the mall or property owner for running a known-dangerous escalator, on a premises-liability theory. Florida lets you pursue both at once, and a jury can apportion fault between them under section 768.81, Florida Statutes.
Often yes. The comb-plate teeth are supposed to mesh with the step grooves so nothing can pass, and a comb-plate safety switch is supposed to stop the unit when something jams. Missing or worn teeth and a dead or bypassed comb switch are documented maintenance failures, and they support both a product and maintenance claim and a premises claim.
It depends on the claim. A product-defect injury claim runs 4 years under section 95.11(3)(d), Florida Statutes. A premises-negligence claim runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(a). A wrongful-death claim runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(e). Because the rider is a minor, the clock is generally tolled during minority, but a 12-year statute of repose under section 95.031(2)(b) can still bar older-equipment claims, so act early.
The industry measures skirt-gap risk with the Step/Skirt Performance Index. Under the published index, a value above 0.4 is not allowable, and values from 0.15 to 0.4 require skirt deflector brushes. KONE even sells Avert deflector brushes that fit most makes and models, so a public escalator with a wide gap and no brushes is hard for any maker to defend.
A property owner or airport authority owes riders a duty to keep escalators reasonably safe and to fix or warn of dangers it knew about or should have known about. If the unit had broken comb teeth, a lapsed inspection certificate, or a prior repair order, that supports a premises-liability claim. Identify the exact escalator and pull its inspection file as early as possible.
It can be. Florida recognizes strict products liability under West v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 336 So. 2d 80 (Fla. 1976). An escalator can be defective in design, manufacture, or warnings. A wide skirt gap, high-friction skirt panel, or missing deflector brushes that let a shoe or clothing be dragged in are the kinds of defects we investigate.
A wrongful-death claim in Florida runs 2 years under section 95.11(5)(e), Florida Statutes. If a child died after an escalator entrapment or fall, that 2-year clock controls the death claim, so it should be treated as the governing deadline even though a separate product claim may carry a longer period.
Georgia recognizes strict products liability under OCGA section 51-1-11, with a 2-year personal-injury limit under OCGA section 9-3-33. The key difference is a 10-year statute of repose on strict-liability claims that runs from the first sale of the unit. On an older escalator, that repose can bar a Georgia strict-liability claim, so identifying the unit quickly is even more critical in Georgia.
Get medical care first. Then photograph the escalator and the comb plate or skirt gap, record the brand, model, and state inspection-certificate number posted at the landing, ask the property to preserve the unit and its parts, get the names of witnesses and any employee who hit the stop button, and request the security video before it is overwritten.
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Call: 904-383-7448