College student who injured herself on broken chair files product liability claim

A Philadelphia college student who alleges she became injured after the classroom chair on which she was sitting crashed to the ground has filed a product liability complaint against the item’s manufacturer.

Attorney Timothy R. Hough, of the Philadelphia firm of Jaffe & Hough, filed the civil action Oct. 5 at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Chrislynn Parmer.

The defendants in the lawsuit are Green Bay, Wisc.-based Krueger International, Inc., and the Community College of Philadelphia.

According to the complaint, Parmer was a student at the college back on Oct. 5, 2009, when, while attending a computer class located on campus, the chair on which she was sitting broke at its base, causing her to “violently” fall to the floor.

The incident caused the plaintiff to sustain a variety of disc herniations and other back injuries, the suit states, all of which have caused her financial detriment.

In addition to her pain and suffering, the plaintiff also sustained “emotional upset and worry,” a loss of life’s pleasures, and she has been deprived of the ability to perform her usual daily household chores and pastimes, the suit claims.

Furthermore, Parmer has suffered humiliation and embarrassment, and she has sustained a “positive loss of the sense of well being.”

The lawsuit accuses Krueger International of strict liability for improperly designing a defective chair, failing to adequately test and inspect the chair involved in the incident, using unsafe, improper and/or inadequate materials and placing the defective chair into the stream of commerce.

The lawsuit also accuses Krueger of breach of warranty and merchantability and general negligence.

The complaint accuses the Community College of Philadelphia of permitting a dangerous and defective condition to exist on its property, failing to remove the dangerous and defective condition from the premises and failing to warn the plaintiff of the dangerous and defective condition.

Parmer has incurred “reasonable and necessary medical expenses” as a result of her injuries, the lawsuit states. She continues to have outstanding medical bills and she has incurred a Department of Welfare lien.

Parmer demands judgment against the defendants, jointly and/or severally, in a sum in excess of $50,000, together with addition relief deemed court appropriate.

The plaintiff has demanded a jury trial.

The case number is 111000330.