INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Zara Clothing Store Sued By Woman Who Finds Mouse ‘Sewn Into Her Dress’

By Lawrence Arboleda
Published on: 00:12 PST, Nov 15, 2016

Zara clothing is now facing a lawsuit after a woman from New York claimed that she has found a dead mouse sewn into the lining of her new dress she bought from the store.

Cailey Fiesel, a 24-year-old woman who lives in Manhattan, said she bought the black dress for $40 from a Zara clothing store in Greenwich, Connecticut, in July 2016, as reported by Telegraph.

After a few weeks, Fiesel wore the Zara dress for the first time at work, until she noticed a “disturbingly pungent odor” emanating from it.

“I felt something brushing up against my leg and thought it was a string from the seam of the dress,” Fiesel told the New York Post.

“I then felt the hem of the dress and it felt like there was some sort of sensor,” she continued. “I turned up the seam of the dress and saw it was not a sensor and that it was a mouse.”

“I froze – I was paralysed with fear,” she added. “I was in complete shock. My eyes saw that it was a mouse, but my brain told myself it can’t be.”

“To her utter shock and disbelief, as she ran her hand over the hem of the dress she felt an unusual bulge and suddenly realized that it was not a string that was rubbing against her leg but was instead a leg rubbing against her leg. The leg of a dead rodent that is,” according to papers filed in Manhattan court.

Fiesel’s colleagues reportedly went to her desk after she jumped up from her chair in disgust. Paralyzed with fear, she ran to remove the dress. After looking closer, she discovered that a dead mouse was sewn into the lining of the dress.

“Despite getting up from her desk and walking around, she was unable to escape the odor,” Fiesel’s lawyer wrote in her Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit, which was filed on Monday.

Ms. Fiesel said she was lucky to have another outfit to change into at the time. Nevertheless, she filed a lawsuit against Zara USA for unspecified damages, indicating that she suffered from emotional distress and developed a large rash later diagnosed as a “rodent-born disease.

The lawsuit against Zara came with photographs showing the dress “conspicuously depicting the dead rodent with at least one of its appendages protruding,” as indicated in the court papers.

The lawsuit against Zara USA included the following statement.

“Zara breached its duty to exercise reasonable care in designing, manufacturing, inspecting, distributing, delivering, supplying, inspecting, and/or selling its products by negligently releasing into the marketplace a product that was defective by containing disease-causing rodents.”

The label on the back of the Zara dress indicates that it was made in Turkey.

“It’s disturbing,” said Adam Deutsch, Fiesel’s representative. “It clearly comes from a lack of oversight in terms of what they’re putting on their shelves.”

Deutsch added that Zara USA is known for “having a quick turn around time” in manufacturing their clothing products, and that it’s probably the reason why the dead rat ended up in the lining of the dress Ms. Fiesel bought from the store.

“They are known for taking a design that is popular and getting it on shelves very quickly, that is because they manufacture all their own material.

“The quickness in which they get things from design to shelf probably leads to their lack of controls.”

Fiesel’s lawyer said that they tried to settle the case out of court but Zara refused.

A spokesperson for Zara USA issued an official statement in response to Fisel’s lawsuit, saying that the company “is aware of the suit” and are “investigating the matter further.”

“Zara USA has stringent health and safety standards, and we are committed to ensuring that all of our products meet these rigorous requirements.”

[Featured Image by Manu Fernandez/AP Images]

Share this article: Zara Clothing Store Sued By Woman Who Finds Mouse ‘Sewn Into Her Dress’
More from Inquisitr