Across the pond in Atlanta, The family of a child whose foot was maimed in an escalator accident at Atlanta airport is suing Crocs Inc., claiming the footwear company failed to put safety features in the soft-soled shoes.

The suit is the second filed this summer involving a child wearing Crocs injured on escalators at the Atlanta International Airport.

The lawsuit filed by the father of a 4-year-old boy is seeking $2 million in damages.

1 foot = $2 million; where they get those numbers from?!

Anyhow; Attorney Stephen McConnell said the boy was riding an escalator at the airport when the machinery mangled his Crocs and "severely and permanently damaged" his right foot.

Crocs spokeswoman Tia Mattson declined to comment.

New York-based attorney Andrew Laskin, who is leading the case, also is handled a number of cases involving crocs. He has settled two other cases with the footwear company, but declined to comment on them.

Laskin said

"This is happening everywhere and Crocs is basically saying it’s the fault of the escalators — or the parents are not watching their children,".

"But that would be the case only if it kept happening on the same escalator over and over again."

In April, Japanese and Filipino authorities asked the Niwot, Colo.-based company to consider changing the footwear’s design because of similar escalator accidents in their countries.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has documented 77 soft shoe entrapments on escalators since January 2006 and issued a warning in May.

The shoe company has promised to insert safety tags into its packaging by next year.

In a 16-page letter to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in June, Crocs Inc engineering director Erik Olson said Crocs has knowledge of 186 accidents involving its shoes and has initiated "safety investigations."

But he added, "Crocs shoes neither present nor introduce a unique hazard pattern when worn by children or adults on escalators."

Mattson would not say how many times the company has been sued or settled lawsuits.