Ikea to pay $46m to parents of child crushed to death by a dresser

Ikea agreed to pay a $46 million (€41 million) settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the parents of a California toddler who was crushed to death by a popular dresser model that had been recalled after at least five other fatalities involving children.

On Monday, a lawyer for Joleen and Craig Dudek, whose son, Jozef, was killed in May 2017, announced the settlement, which was confirmed by an Ikea spokeswoman. In 2016, Ikea reached a $50 million settlement with three other families with children who were killed by furniture that had toppled over.

The Dudeks sued Ikea in 2017 in state court in Pennsylvania, where Ikea’s north American headquarters is based. They argued that the furniture maker knew that its Malm line of dressers was prone to tipping over and had failed to warn customers of the unstable design.

The company first offered free wall-anchoring kits to its millions of customers as part of a repair programme before issuing a recall in June 2016. The Dudeks, of Buena Park, California, bought the dresser in 2008 and said in the lawsuit that they were never alerted to the recall by Ikea.

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On May 24th, 2017, when Craig Dudek went to check on Jozef in a bedroom where he had been sleeping, he found his son pinned beneath the drawers of the 32kg (70lb) dresser that had toppled on to to him, according to the lawsuit. The child died later that day from asphyxia caused by mechanical compression of the neck, noted the lawsuit.

“We miss him so much,” said the Dudeks in a statement issued through their lawyer. “He would be turning five years old this April. We never thought that a two-year-old could cause a dresser just 30in high to topple over and suffocate him. It was only later that we learned that this dresser was unstable by design and did not meet safety standards, and that this had happened to other little boys.”

An Ikea spokeswoman said the company had taken steps to try to raise awareness of the safety hazards of tip-overs, including requiring safety training for employees.

“While no settlement can alter the tragic events that brought us here, for the sake of the family and all involved, we’re grateful that this litigation has reached a resolution,” she said. “We remain committed to working proactively and collaboratively to address this very important home safety issue. Again, we offer our deepest condolences.”

Is legislation in the pipeline?

Consumer product safety groups say that Jozef’s death was not an isolated case. They have pressed members of Congress to pass the Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth Act or Sturdy Act, which would require the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to develop safety rules for free-standing clothing storage units to protect children from death or injury from tip-overs.

Since 2011, at least five other children have been killed when various models of the Malm dresser tipped over, according to the Dudeks’ lawsuit. The lawsuit also noted that an additional 91 children had been injured before their son’s death.

“If a two-year-old can tip over a three-draw dresser, you know there’s something wrong with that dresser,” said the Dudeks’ lawyer, Alan M Feldman. “There’s millions and millions of them in American homes.”

At the time of the Ikea recall in June 2016, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission Elliot F Kaye warned of the dangers of the falling dressers.

“If you have or think you have one of these products, act immediately,” he said. “It is simply too dangerous to have the recalled furniture in your home unanchored, especially if you have young children.”

As part of the settlement, Ikea representatives have agreed to meet advocacy group Parents Against Tip-overs and to broaden its outreach over the recall, said Mr Feldman.

The Dudeks are donating $1 million from the settlement to three consumer product safety groups, he added. – New York Times