By Greg Bolt
Register Guard
SALEM, Ore. — A convicted sex offender serving more than 16 years in prison is being sued for $11.25 million for running over his 2-year-old daughter with a riding lawn mower years before his conviction.
The lawsuit is the second effort to fix blame and assess damages for the gruesome 2006 mishap, which resulted in the amputation of the toddler’s left leg. An attorney for the girl sued John Deere & Co., the mower manufacturer, in 2008 on claims that the machine was unsafe, but a jury cleared the company of blame.
Now Springfield attorney Dwight Purdy, again acting as the girl’s conservator, is suing her father, Kirk Douglas Norton, currently inmate 18504772 at the Snake River Correctional Institution.
Norton, who had not been charged with the sex crimes at the time of the mower incident, is accused of negligence for backing over the toddler while mowing the lawn of their Springfield home.
In 2010, Norton was indicted on more than a dozen sex charges involving girls under age 14, most of them the daughters of relatives or family friends.
The crimes stretched back more than 20 years.
Full story: Inmate sued over his daughter’s mower injuries