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Suffering from a diabetic condition that causes a lack of feeling in his extremities, James Gotcher failed to notice a large laceration on his foot which later became infected.
Gotcher alleges his injury was caused by a piece of metal that was molded into his Nike shoe.
Along with his wife, Joyce, Gotcher filed a product liability suit against Nike Inc. on June 30 in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas.
According to the complaint, his wife purchased the Nike high-top basketball shoes on sale in January 2008 but that Gotcher did not wear the shoes until he went fishing in June. Although it was his first time to wear the shoes, Gotcher wore them all day and evening for two days.
The lawsuit states that Gotcher came home late on the first day and did not take off his socks until the following evening after another long day of fishing. When he removed his socks, his wife discovered a large cut on the bottom of his foot.
According to the lawsuit, she then checked his shoe and felt a sharp object protruding from inside the sole of the shoe. The plaintiffs believe that the object might be the head of a sheet metal screw and that it did not originate from the outside of the shoe, but had possibly been molded into the shoe's sole.
The plaintiffs state that the shoe was not reasonably fit and was unreasonably dangerous for its intended purpose due to a manufacturing defect.
Further, the plaintiffs believe that during the normal and ordinary use of the shoes, the risk of danger and injury was "entirely foreseeable to and well-known to the Defendant."
Causes of action filed against Nike include products liability and breach of implied warranty of merchantability.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages for physical pain and suffering, medical expenses to treat the resulting infection on his foot, emotional distress, mental anguish, and loss of care, support, services and consortium
Reading the article, most of this could have been avoided if the
client was given some advise "breaking in with periodical wearing" with the product.
Of course when the product was purchased it does not sound like the
client was even present at the time of purchase, so some
responsibility of not all would lay with the plaintiff.
What diabetic with PN would buy shoes with them been fitted....yes l know the answer to my own question........."Most"
Funnily enough I had a teenage client who was getting terrible pain in both feet mid foot. Heavy callus was present and he kept changing to different socks and checking the insoles and to no effect...it was crippling him to run.
Brought in his Nike's to show me, pulled out the insole and low and behold this great wedge of metal in mid foot area and proud of the bottom of the shoe. Told him to throw them away and buy a pair of Asics.... did so no more problems and recently ran a marathon in them!
Moral of the story apart from don't buy Nike with this fitting????
To all,
This is an interesting case.
1. The patient's wife purchased the footwear - how did she determine the correct size for her husband.
2. As we tell all our patient's especially diabetics - CHECK your feet on a daily basis.
3. Change socks on a daily basis and if they get wet - immediately.
4. Was there a history of PN prior to the incident
5. Seek medical assistance immediately. How long after injury was medical assistance given?
6. If he was fishing could the sharp object be related to his activities - fishing hook, wire, sinker material?
Nike has to defend one thing - how did the foreign object get through several layers of EVA and other cushioning material?
- If the object was protruding out of the innersole in could have come from the injection moulding process when the EVA was in a liquid state and when the EVA solidified the foreign object sat proud of the sole. The first innersole would the be laid on top of the sole. The removable innersole would then be place into the shoe the toe box area would then be stuffed with wadding, boxed and sent out of the factory.
Where were the shoes made - was there any quality control on the production line
If the object penetrated though the outer sole there is no case to answer.
The easiest tests to determine fault - scan the shoe and then cut the shoe carefully to pieces by an independent laboratory.
Don
Last edited by Don ESWT : 16th July 2009 at 04:43 AM.
Reason: spelling mistakes
Off the top of my head they were Pegasus about £75 ish. Having looked in the shop that he bought them from it would appear that the shoes he had may have been older stock that they cleared out. The new Pegasus don't have this metal insert in them. ( I have ripped out every insole of every Nike that I have seen in the shop) The owner of the shop was as surprised as I was when I originally showed him the shoe and when I spoke to him today (having seen this thread) he said that he now checks all the Nike's to make sure that he doesn't put any on the shelf with the metal in BUT Nike appears to have changed and none of them have it in at present.
I can only think that they were trying to put a mid sole stiffener in and it may have back fired dramatically on them.
I'll see the patient on Monday I think and I can ask him to confirm model if he remembers but I know it was at the top end of the range.
The Nike shoes that I am talking about had the metal proud of the insole it was never ever embedded below any EVA, poron or any padding at all. You lifted the insole and bang there it was staring at you. If I can I'll ask him to bring it in and take a picture and post it on here.
Don said "...from the injection moulding process when the EVA was in a liquid state and when the EVA solidified the foreign object...."
Several things are in place that should have stopped most objects getting in.
It would have to be a very small piece to get through the injection nosile, maybe 2 mm long and about 1mm wide and even then l doubt it? the tolerances in the injection barrel are small, any foreign object will normally get stuck inside the barrel ($$$$) or in the injection channel of the mold, our injection channels in our molds are1.5mm diameter with a 45 degree bend before the sole, the break point for the shot.
Most hoppers that the raw material is poured into are fitted with magnets to stop metal objects getting in as an injection barrel is worth several thousand dollars and will not tolerate metal objects very well at all.
And finally the temperature that we run our injection molder at is 175 degrees for the barrel and 200 for the nosile, meaning any and all plastic objects should have melted.
Of course "Murphy's law" should always been taken into account.
All,
A patient presented with a pair of joggers. Inside the joggers was a small plastic bar code device. I removed this object but it came apart while I was removing it and there were three foil strips embedded in the bar code
That sounds like a shop security tag, they are long thin strips with an adhesive back containing 3 thin strips of foil, some have barcodes printed on the outside. They will trigger the store's alarms in the same way as the larger tags we are used to seeing on clothing. The stores have systems to deactivate these adhesive tags without removing them.
It is unusual, but not unheard of, for stores to put these in footwear, in this instance I doubt the manufacturer would have put it there.
Euan,
That is exactly what they are. These two barcode device were under the innersole. I still have them. The foil strips are very sharp.
What could have happened is conjecture, it could have been the store who put a security device inside the shoe and it worked it's way out of position and caused the injury to the diabetic foot? Who Knows!
Nike sued over diabetic's foot infection
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