Family of tot killed by table to receive $10M

Pennsylvania - New Jersey - New York - Nationwide

BY DAN GERINGER
Of the Daily News Staff
January 27, 2004

The family of 5-year-old kindergartener Jonathan Cozzolino, who was killed when a folded cafeteria table fell on him at Disston Elementary School in 2001, will received a $10 million settlement today from the table's manufacturer.

Cozzolino, of Edmund Street near Levick, was standing in line after lunch, waiting to leave the school cafeteria, when he leaned against a folded-up, 250-pound cafeteria table. It toppled over on him, causing fatal head trauma.

Cozzolino's mother, Angeline M. Uberti, sued the school district and Midwest Folding Products of Chicago. The district settled for $500,000, its legal maximum.

Today, Midwest Folding Products, will settle for $10 million, said Uberti's attorneys, Tom Kline and Matthew Casey.

"This case started out with a lot of questions as to why Jonathan Cozzolino, a little kindergartener, died while in the school cafeteria, literally waiting in line after lunch," Kline said last night.

"The answers took us to the door of the table manufacturer who sold a table which was defective, unreasonably dangerous and unquestionably a substantial factor in causing a little kindergartener's death.

"We undertook a massive investigation to determine what happened here," Kline said. "In the end, it was overwhelmingly established that the manufacturer was largely responsible for causing the death because they knew of the unsafe qualities of the table, and they didn't take appropriate - and I might add inexpensive - measures to correct it."

The lawyers discovered documents showing that, years before the fatal accident, Underwriter's Laboratories Inc. had warned Midwest Folding Products that its Model BU-12 Mobile Folding Cafeteria Table, when stored in the upright position, was dangerously tippy.

"We literally pried that document loose from Midwest Folding Products [by obtaining court orders] to establish their responsibility," Kline said.

Despite the written warning from Underwriter's Laboratories, he said, the manufacturer did not remedy the problem in Philadelphia.

The $10 million "wrongful death" settlement, Kline said, sends "a larger national message, which is that folding cafeteria tables generally, and this particular table, when in an upright position, have a propensity to tip over - and in this case caused the death of an innocent child.

"Every day, when a parent drops a child off at school and knows the child will go to the cafeteria/auditorium/gymnasium that has these tables, that parent should ask: 'How are these tables managed?' And: 'Is my child safe?' "

Kline is the attorney who won a $7.4 million settlement from SEPTA, after a jury awarded $51 million to 7-year-old Shareif Hall, whose right foot was severed by a dangerously defective subway escalator.

Both cases, Kline said, "revealed a public safety hazard which the lawsuit brought to the light of day."

By paying the $10 million settlement, Midwest Folding Products avoids a jury trial, which was to begin this week.