Embattled Company Peloton Faces Product Liability Suit
Peloton’s stock jumped during the pandemic when Americans were homebound and looking for ways to stay healthy. The company produces luxury fitness equipment but has faced product liability lawsuits over its treadmill after two children were injured and one died on the machine. Peloton further faced stock issues after a character died of a heart attack on one of their machines in the Sex in the City reboot. Peloton was set to move forward with a commercial with Chris Noth, but then two former associates accused him of sexual assault. Now, a woman claims she fractured both of her ankles when she tried to unclip herself from a Peloton stationary bike. She has filed a lawsuit against the company seeking damages related to her injuries.
According to the lawsuit, the clipless pedals are to blame for her ankle injuries. Despite the name, clipless pedals have clips that fasten your foot to the pedal. This is common for bikers who do a lot of cycling. The clips are associated with serious injuries, but many prefer them. If a cyclist is dislodged from the bike, they fly off the bike, and the bike flies in a different direction. It’s much more difficult to be dislodged from a clipless bike because your feet are fastened to the bike itself. This causes the rider to be projected directly into the ground. Hence why clipless bike lawsuits exist. However, this is the first instance we have heard of anyone filing a clipless pedal lawsuit against a stationary bike company.
The clipping system
It’s hard to get any specific details concerning how the injury occurred, but apparently, the woman became trapped within the clipping system and was unable to dislodge herself. Again, this isn’t something you would associate with a typical bike accident. Most can easily slide their feet into and out of the clips. In this case, it appears the woman had supreme difficulty doing that and injured herself in the attempt. One would imagine an individual on a bike would have difficulty removing the clips if they could not simply slide their foot out of the clip. If the clip trapped both feet while she was on the bike, she would not have had the use of her hands to get off the bike. That would have resulted in the woman falling from the bike and injuring both ankles.
The woman received the bike on Christmas of 2018 and the injury occurred in February of 2019, meaning the bike was likely factory standard at the time. The company can still claim that the bike wasn’t put together properly, which is often a defense to these sorts of lawsuits. They can further claim that the woman wasn’t using the clips properly, but it’s not as strong of an argument.
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Resource:
nypost.com/2022/01/21/long-island-woman-fractured-both-ankles-unclipping-from-peloton-bike-suit/