Lawsuit alleges Adirondack chair defect
The plastic Adirondack-style chair may be one of the most ubiquitous seats in outdoor America. The chairs, which come in a variety of colors, decorate yards, decks and patios seemingly everywhere.
They’re usually a summer pleasure, but are they also a danger?
A Green Bay man who says he was left a quadriplegic after using one at a Door County resort last fall, claims in a federal lawsuit the chairs are defectively designed and manufactured.
Ronald Scanlan sued Adams Manufacturing, which makes the popular chairs in Pennsylvania. The lawsuit, filed last month in federal court in Milwaukee, says shortly before midnight, Oct. 29, he “placed, some, but not all, of his weight” on one of the chairs.
It collapsed; he hit the ground and wound up paralyzed, the lawsuit states.
Scanlan is represented by Daniel Rottier, a Madison partner in the personal injury firm Habush, Habush & Rottier. Rottier declined to return repeated messages from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The lawsuit accuses Adams of negligence in its design, manufacturing, testing, warning and sale of the chair. It also claims Adams should be held strictly liable because the chair was defective in design, or contained a manufacturing defect, or was defective due to inadequate instructions or warnings. Any of those would leave the chair “unreasonably dangerous to users,” the complaint says.
Scanlan was using the chair while at Homestead Suites in Fish Creek, which purchased six of the chairs from a local store last June. Homestead Suites is not named as a defendant in the case. Owner Paul Woerfel and manager Kevin Bauldry did not return messages.
Daniel Stainer, director of marketing for Adams Manufacturing, said the Adirondack-style chair is the company’s most popular chair, and that Adams has probably sold “millions” of them. They cost about $30 at several major big box retailers.
Stainer was unfamiliar with Scanlan’s lawsuit but noted the chairs meet or exceed American Society of Testing and Materials standards. The chairs come with labels warning against use by people over 250 pounds or on uneven or wet surfaces. The labels also warn against standing on the chairs.
The chairs are specifically meant and labeled for residential use, Stainer said.
Stainer said it would also need to be proven the chair involved was in fact an Adams chair, since there are many similar products. There would also be investigation into exactly how Scanlan was using the chair, and how the chair may have been misused or damaged before Scanlan used it.
At least one other lawsuit makes similar claims.
A Florida man sued Adams and Home Depot over the chairs last year. That plaintiff says he weighs less than 250 pounds, but that in 2019 the chair he purchased collapsed when he sat on it, He claimed to have suffered “significant” but unspecified injuries.
Photographs attached as exhibits to the lawsuit suggest the back of the chair broke away from the seat.
A GoFundMe site established for Scanlan has raised about $45,000. According to updates on the site, Scanlan has been in and out of hospitals in two states dealing with heart and respiratory problems since the accident.
He spent time at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa getting physical therapy to learn to use a wheelchair and currently resides in a rehabilitation center in Racine County.