Pulaski County Jury Awards $3 Million to Medical Student Who Lost Big Toe in Park Plaza Mall Escalator
After trial: We found no reported appeal or post-trial reduction, but could not check the appellate docket directly, so finality is not confirmed. Whether the judgment was paid is not public.
On December 10, 2013, Aisha Siddiqui, a 22-year-old aspiring surgeon visiting from New York, had her right big toe torn off when her foot was pulled into an escalator at Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock. Park Plaza and the escalator maker Kone admitted fault before trial and contested only the amount. After a three-day trial, a Pulaski County jury awarded $3 million in December 2018.
What happened
On December 10, 2013, Aisha Siddiqui was shopping for Christmas at Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was 22, a recent graduate from New York planning a career in surgery. As she rode an escalator, her right foot, in a boot, was drawn into a gap in the moving staircase and caught in the teeth of the machine. Her right big toe was crushed and torn away.
The injury did not end when the escalator stopped. Firefighters who freed her were trying to save the toe for reattachment, and reports of the rescue say she could not be given pain medication until she was out of the machine. The toe could not be reattached. The escalator had been built in 1988, and surveillance video captured the accident. It was later removed and replaced with a unit that has an automatic stop sensor.
Siddiqui underwent two surgeries and about six months of recovery. Losing the great toe changed the way she walks, and she lives with chronic pain and gait abnormalities. She was also uncertain whether she could meet the physical demands of clinical rotations in a surgical career.
She sued Park Plaza and Kone, the escalator manufacturer, in Pulaski County Circuit Court roughly ten to eleven months after the accident. Both defendants acknowledged fault before the case reached a jury, so the trial before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza turned on damages alone. Denise Hoggard of Rainwater, Holt and Sexton represented Siddiqui. Defense counsel Mark Breeding for the mall and Michael Emerson for Kone argued that a much smaller award would be fair and reasonable, pointing to doubt over whether she would finish medical school or become a surgeon.
Hoggard told jurors that the injury affected every step her client takes and that the pain would not lessen for the rest of her life. She characterized the defense position as a bargain basement price for what Siddiqui had lost.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for about two hours. On December 5, 2018, nine jurors, the minimum required for a civil verdict in Arkansas, agreed on an award of $3 million.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 'Jurors award $3M for escalator-mangled toe at Little Rock's Park Plaza mall', Dec. 7, 2018·Archived copy
- 2.Claims Journal, 'Arkansas Woman Gets $3M Jury Award for Escalator-Mangled Toe', Dec. 10, 2018·Archived copy
- 3.Newsweek, 'Jury Awards $3 Million To Woman Who Lost A Toe In A 2013 Escalator Accident', Dec. 2018·Archived copy
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