A California woman has filed a wrongful death lawsuit after her adult daughter who was homeless suffocated while trying to get clothes out of a donation bin.
Kaily Land, 30, died in November when the lid of the bin closed on her neck. Her mother, Darcey Kingsley, filed a lawsuit last month in Sonoma County Superior Court against container manufacturer RPI and operator Recycle for Change, saying they should have known the boxes are dangerous, The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa reported.
"She was 30 and she shouldn't be dead," Kingsley told KTVU-TV. "And then I found out there were people who had died before her and nothing had been done, nothing had changed. The bins are made the same way, and almost take a person's head off."
Land was homeless at the time of her death and friends said she sometimes foraged for clothes in donation bins, KTVU-TV reported. Her flashlight was found at the bottom of the bin and her bicycle was found nearby.
There have been more than 20 deaths related to similar donation bins over 12 years in the U.S. and Canada, said Kingsley's attorney, Scott Montgomery. The bins have been owned by different companies, but they all have the same anti-theft design in which the lid pinches shut when weight is put on it.
“The clothing donation box was dangerous in that people who attempted to get clothes out of the box could become stuck in the box, and potentially asphyxiate,” the lawsuit said. “Recycle for Change ... were aware of this danger, or should have been aware of this danger, as there have been dozens of similar incidents across North America.”
The lawsuit calls for a change to the bin design and unspecified monetary damages. Montgomery said the bins should have, at minimum, a skull and crossbones emblem warning that getting caught in the bin could result in death.
“You have people dying across the country, and there’s never been, from what we can see, any investigation,” Montgomery told the Press-Democrat. “Unfortunately, from my vantage point, it’s probably because of who’s being hurt. It’s people on the margins of society.”
Neither RPI nor Recycle for Change have responded to media requests for comment.
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