WATSON, Justice.

In this escalator case, twenty-two month old Marcus Brown injured his left little finger when it was caught in the space between the moving treads and the left side panel. The trial court granted a directed verdict on liability at the conclusion of the evidence and the jury awarded the medical expenses of $4,163.47 and $1,500 in general damages.

Sears, Roebuck and Company, the custodial store, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the manufacturer of the escalator, appealed on the issue of liability and plaintiff appealed the award of general damages, contending that $1,500 was too low. Relying on Halphen v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., the court of appeal decided that escalators fall into the category of products which are unreasonably dangerous per se. Since Marcus Brown was legally incapable of fault and his mother, Jolene Brown, was held free from negligence, there was no victim or third party fault. Finding the award of general damages to be unreasonably low, the court of appeal increased it to $3,000 and the judgment, as amended, was affirmed. A writ was granted because of the directed verdict in the trial court and the court of appeal's statement that an escalator is unreasonably dangerous per se.

FACTS

On June 22, 1982, Jolene Brown stepped on an ascending escalator with her son Marcus, putting his left hand on the left rail, holding Marcus' right hand with her left hand, and placing her right hand on the rail. Both were on the same step.

In Jolene's opinion, the greatest danger in riding an escalator came when getting on and getting off, and she was looking ahead to the point where they were to step off at the escalator's top comb plate. She did not feel Marcus release the left handrail, and he stood up straight holding her hand throughout the ride. When Marcus screamed, she looked and saw blood shooting from his left little finger. He had apparently let go of the handrail, obviously disproportionate to his size, and his hand had been caught in the side gap. Jolene's cousin, Sapha Marie Charles, was riding the escalator two steps behind the Browns. She confirmed that the child held his mother's hand throughout the ride.

Defendants strongly rely on the allegation that Marcus Brown poked his little finger into the side space and thus misused the escalator because of inadequate supervision. This might have happened but there is no evidence that it did. His mother did not see what happened. Her cousin, Sapha, said ". . . some kind of way he got his finger caught. . . ." Asked: "Did you ever see this child bend over and stick his hand down in anything?", Sapha replied, "No." Even if defendants were correct, the exploring fingers of small children are a normal and foreseeable event.

The escalator had pictograms showing a woman riding the escalator with one hand on the handrail and the other holding her child's hand. Circles indicate zones of danger at the bottom where the sides and the treads intersect. The sign says "caution, hold handrail, attend children, avoid sides." These signs, installed by Westinghouse, were required by the ANSI Code. There is a dispute about two other signs which plaintiff and her cousin testified were not present on the day of the accident, but the store manager said were customarily posted. However, these merely say, in pertinent part, "caution, attend children" and add little except size and prominence. They caution against bare feet and advise that an elevator is available in the appliance department.

The store manager admitted that he had been personally involved with one other accident on this particular escalator and had heard of "others". The state-of-the-art escalator was inspected regularly by Westinghouse. The gap on each side of the treads was no more than three-sixteenths of an inch, the maximum allowed by ANSI standards. The side skirts were kept lubricated to reduce friction. A Westinghouse expert, Jerry Dwight Mowdy, assumed that young children would ride on the escalator, both alone and accompanied, and also would play on the escalator.

The tendon in Marcus Brown's left little finger was cut and retracted into the palm. There was also neurovascular damage to the finger. The tendon was sutured back into place under general anesthesia. Marcus underwent physical therapy and remained under a doctor's care for approximately six months, resulting in an exaggerated fear of physicians. According to Dr. Terry Cromwell, an expert in plastic and reconstructive hand surgery who testified in video deposition, the tendon repair had been disrupted or adhesions had developed one year after the accident. The last joint of the injured finger was immobile, giving Marcus a forty-five percent impairment of his left little finger, but only two percent of his hand. According to Dr. Cromwell, most young children, like Marcus, adapt well to such minor disabilities.

LAW

In Hunt v. City Stores, Inc., 387 So.2d 585 (La., 1980) the space at the side of a store's moving escalator tended to trap small tennis shoes, in part because the friction of the treads softened the rubber of the shoes. Therefore, the escalator "posed a threat to small children in tennis shoes. City Stores was aware of the danger and had a duty to warn of the risk of injury. It failed to do so. The store was at fault in not guarding the public against the risk of harm posed by the escalator." Hunt followed Marquez v. City Stores Co., 371 So.2d 810 (La. 1979), the seminal Louisiana case on escalator liability in regard to small children.

Hunt held that a state of the art escalator with a propensity for entrapping small tennis shoes, which had no warning, created an unreasonable risk of injury to children wearing tennis shoes, making both the custodial store and the manufacturer solidarily liable. Hunt did not hold that escalators are unreasonably dangerous as a matter of law.

Although Halphen, supra, used the phrase "unreasonably dangerous per se", and cited Hunt, this statement must be considered in the context of Halphen which was answering a certified question about the liability of a manufacturer which did not know and could not have reasonably known of the inherent danger in its product. Halphen concluded that manufacturers are liable for things termed unreasonably dangerous per se regardless of knowledge.

In Hunt, there was no question that the manufacturer and the store had knowledge of the danger presented by the escalator to small children in tennis shoes, and therefore had a duty to warn which was breached. Knowledge was not an issue in Hunt. However, Hunt's citation in Halphen apparently misled the court of appeal. What Halphen meant in citing Hunt was that a product is unreasonably dangerous where its danger outweighs its utility, regardless of whether the danger is foreseeable.

Many of the escalator cases share a common element with this one, previous injuries. See Marquez, supra; Hunt, supra; Montgomery Elevator v. McCullough, 676 S.W.2d 776 (Ky., 1984), a tennis shoe case; and Peffer v. G. C. Murphy Co., 73 Dauph. Co. 202, 17 Pa. D. C.2d 595 (1959). Such evidence makes the existence of a design defect more probable. Montgomery, supra.

A review of cases from other jurisdictions reveals that a multitude of children have been injured on escalators. See, for example, Collesides v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 125 Misc.2d 413, 479 N.Y.S.2d 475 (1984) where an infant's finger was ripped from her hand. In Gilliam v. J.C. Penney Company, 341 F.2d 457 (7 Cir., 1965), the flesh of a three year old's left arm was caught between an escalator's riser and its side-wall. A six year old boy mutilated his hand by sticking his finger between a handrail and its guard in Estabrook v. J.C. Penney Company, 105 Ariz. 302, 464 P.2d 325 (1970). An infant's hand was caught between an escalator's step and its bottom plate in Butterman v. R.H. Macy Company, 305 N.Y.S.2d 861, 33 A.D.2d 746 (1969). Also see Connelly v. Kaufmann Baer, Inc., 349 Pa. 261, 37 A.2d 125 (1944); J.C. Penney Company v. Eubanks, 294 F.2d 519 (10 Cir., 1961), another side panel tennis shoe case; and Nettrour v. J.C. Penney Company, 146 Col. 150, 360 P.2d 964 (1961), another side wall finger case. In Otis Elevator Company v. Wood, 436 S.W.2d 324 (Tex., 1968) an elderly female store employee was injured by an escalator when she assisted a small child.

Jolene Brown was correct in regarding the comb plates at the top and bottom of the escalator as zones of danger. The top plate was the source of the injury in Collesides, supra; in Connelly, supra, the bottom comb caused the amputation of a three year old boy's middle finger; in Takashi Kataoka v. May Dept. Stores Co., 60 Cal.App.2d 177, 140 P.2d 467 (1943), a four year old had his hand caught in the comb plate. See Reynolds v. May Department Stores Co., 127 F.2d 396 (8 Cir., 1942), latter app. 140 F.2d 799 (8 Cir., 1944), cert. den. 317 U.S. 639, 63 S.Ct. 31, 87 L.Ed. 515; Peffer, supra, where a four year old boy's hand was caught in the top comb plate; Pisano v. S. Klein on the Square, 78 N.J. Super. 375, 188 A.2d 622, cert. dismissed 40 N.J. 220, 191 A.2d 61 (1963), where a five year old child's hand was caught under the comb plate; Turk v. H. C. Prange Co., 18 Wis.2d 547, 119 N.W.2d 365 (1963); and Gilbert v. Korvette, Inc., 223 Pa. Super. 359, 299 A.2d 356 (1972), aff'd 457 P. 602, 327 A.2d 94 (1974), where a three year old boy's foot was pulled into the comb plate. Also see, Graves v. May Department Stores Co., 153 S.W.2d 778 (Mo., 1941); Burdine's, Inc. v. McConnell, 146 Fla. 512, 1 So.2d 462 (1941); and Jablonski v. May Department Stores Co., 153 S.W.2d 786 (Mo.App., 1941).

Courts have assigned various legal bases for finding liability in escalator cases, among them: classification as a common carrier; res ipsa loquitur; the special care required for small children; and strict liability.

Escalators in department stores are often characterized as common carriers. Peffer, supra; Vandagriff v. J.C. Penney Company, 39 Cal.Rpt. 671, 228 Cal.App.2d 579 (1964); Hendershott v. Macy's, 158 Cal.App.2d 324, 322 P.2d 596 (1958); Simmons v. F.W. Woolworth Company, 163 Cal.App.2d 709, 329 P.2d 999 (1958); Weiner v. May Department Stores Co., 35 F. Supp. 895 (1940); Petrie v. Kaufmann Baer Co., 291 Pa. 211, 139 A. 878 (1927). This imposes a duty of utmost care and diligence.

Some courts have imposed liability on escalator manufacturers and operators by applying res ipsa loquitur, a rationale analagous to that in Marquez and Shapiro where the injuries were found to be unusual occurrences which would not have happened if the escalators had not been defective.

In Gilbert v. Korvette, Inc., supra, the court concluded that the accident would not have occurred in the absence of negligence and applied the res ipsa loquitur rule of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965) in Section 328D. Other res ipsa loquitur or presumption of negligence escalator cases are Vandagriff, supra, where an eight year old boy's finger was amputated; May Dept. Stores Co. v. Bell, 61 F.2d 830 (8 Cir., 1932); J.C. Penney v. Eubanks, 294 F.2d 519 (10 Cir. 1961); Sanone v. J.C. Penney Company, 17 Utah 2d 46, 404 P.2d 248 (1965); Petrie, supra; Hesemann v. May Dept. Stores Co., 225 Mo.App. 584, 39 S.W.2d 797 (1931); Pisano, supra; and Turk, supra. Res ipsa loquitur was also applied in J.C. Penney Co. v. Livingston, 271 S.W.2d 906 (Ky., 1954), a case similar to this one in that the injured child was twenty-two months old and was holding his sister's hand when his other hand was caught in the escalator's step.

Many cases emphasize the special care that must be accorded to children because of their curiosity, inability to appreciate danger, and childish propensity to meddle. See Kline v. J.C. Penney Co., 153 Cal.App.2d 717, 314 P.2d 989 (1957); Nettrour, supra; Hecht Co. v. Jacobsen, 86 D.C.App. 81, 180 F.2d 13 (1950); Burdine's, supra; Graves, supra; Hillerbrand v. May Mercantile Co., 141 Mo.App. 122, 121 S.W. 326 (1909); Takashi Kataoka, supra; Peffer, supra.

If escalators are unsafe for children, store owners should warn against children using them. Reynolds, supra; Nettrour, supra; Marquez, supra; J.C. Penney Co. v. Livingston, supra; Burdine's supra; Graves, supra; Jablonski, supra. The pictograph here was an invitation for a child to accompany an adult on the escalator and implied that the escalator was reasonably safe for children.

When a product's defect causes injury in normal use, Louisiana imposes strict tort liability on the manufacturer of the defective product if the injury might reasonably have been anticipated. Bloxom v. Bloxom, 512 So.2d 839 (La., 1987); Weber v. Fidelity Casualty Insurance Co. of N Y, 259 La. 599, 250 So.2d 754 (1971). A defect may be inferred from the circumstances of the accident. Marquez, supra; Shapiro, supra. Under LSA-C.C. art. 2317, as interpreted in Loescher v. Parr, 324 So.2d 441 (La. 1975), both the manufacturer and the custodian of an unreasonably dangerous, i.e., defective thing, are strictly liable in solido for any resulting injuries. Marquez, supra; Hunt, supra.

CONCLUSION

Unquestionably utilitarian, preferred by store owners because of the vistas afforded shoppers, escalators are entrenched in the department stores of the United States. It is common knowledge that escalators are prominently located and elevators are generally less accessible in these stores. While riding escalators, most parents exercise "caution" and "attend children". Many who have recovered in reported cases were less cautious and attentive than Jolene Brown, who held her child firmly by the hand. See Burdine's, supra; Hecht, supra; Kline, supra; and Shapiro, supra. Nonetheless, the injury occurred. Caution and attention are insufficient. Marcus Brown was injured while he and his mother were using the escalator in a normal, even prudent, manner.

If the dangers are unavoidable, one is compelled to the question posed in Reynolds, supra: should infants be allowed to ride on escalators? The inescapable conclusion is that escalators, for all their utility, are unreasonably dangerous to small children. If escalators cannot be made reasonably safe for escorted children, children should be warned against riding them. Stores and manufacturers who do not warn against children riding escalators are strictly liable for any resulting injuries. Bloxom, supra; Hunt, supra. Signs were posted but they did not adequately warn users with small children of the particular danger which led to this accident. The court of appeal correctly found that there was no victim or third party fault. Although not unreasonably dangerous "per se", escalators are unreasonably dangerous to small children, making their manufacturers and custodians strictly liable for escalator injuries to those children. LSA-C.C. art. 2317. There is no question that the injury here was foreseeable, which would also make the manufacturer liable under Weber, supra.

Since there is minimal permanent disability, there is no error in the quantum of general damages fixed by the court of appeal.

The trial court did not err in directing a verdict on liability in favor of plaintiff after all evidence was heard.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the court of appeal is affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

CALOGERO and COLE, JJ., concur and assign reasons.

MARCUS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.

LEMMON, J., dissents.