Cannon & Dunphy Recovers $9.7 Million in Door County Laundromat Arm-Amputation Case

In May 1994, an 11-year-old boy went with his mother and older brother to the Bay Ridge Laundromat in Sturgeon Bay, in Wisconsin's Door County, to wash blankets, rugs, and other heavy items. His mother sent him to check whether the machines had finished. He opened the door of a commercial IPSO 'Big Mac' triple-load washer while the drum was still spinning. When laundry spilled out and he reached in to push it back, the machine caught his left arm and tore it from his body.

Surgeons reattached the arm in an operation that ran about 15 hours. The reconstruction saved the limb, but court records indicated he would likely never regain more than a small fraction of its use. He was 11 at the time of the accident and 12 by the time the case resolved.

The family, from Egg Harbor, hired William Cannon of Cannon & Dunphy S.C. in Milwaukee. The washer was supposed to carry two safeguards: a latch to hold the door shut while the machine ran, and a cutoff to stop the drum if someone pried the door open mid-cycle. Neither one worked. A loaded commercial drum of that size keeps spinning with considerable force, which is the reason the door is meant to stay locked until it stops. Cannon's team argued that the manufacturer had long known the door could be opened during operation and had neither corrected the latch nor warned the businesses that bought the machines.

The lawsuit named several companies. IPSO International NV, of Belgium, built the washer. Mac-Gray Co. Inc. distributed it. American Queensway Inc. installed the unit. Struck Bros. Inc. owned the Laundromat. Rather than take the product claims to a jury, the manufacturer and two of the suppliers agreed to pay. IPSO contributed $5 million, Mac-Gray $3.5 million, and American Queensway $350,000, for $8.85 million approved in Brown County Circuit Court. Lawyers who followed the case described it as the largest amount paid for an amputation injury in Wisconsin to that point.

Because the product claims ended by agreement, there was no verdict and nothing for an appeals court to reduce. The Wisconsin Law Journal later put the firm's total recovery in the case at $9.7 million.