I saw that this had popped back up in the news. Having worked for a personal injury attorney, I was curious enough to read one of the articles. Apparently the story has changed (who's shocked) between the police report and the filing of the lawsuit. The police report says the kid wandered away from the table, and the rotation mechanism stopped as soon as he got caught (safety shut down, OF COURSE you know there is one). Lawsuit claims the child never wandered off, that when they were leaving the restaurant he "walked ahead" of his parents and got caught in the mechanism. The parents also claim that the rotation didn't stop right away* and that they were both injured trying to pull the kid free.
If I were on that jury, I'd believe the police report taken at the time of the accident over the parents' claims months later. They're clearly looking to make a buck off their kid's corpse.
*This makes no sense. Either there's an auto safety shut off (I can't imagine OSHA would let something like this exist without one), or someone had access to the control. If the latter, why not shut it down as soon as they knew the kid was caught? Then again, there's so much about this story that screams "bullshit,"
when the rotation stopped just becomes a quibble....