Parents of a Washington state toddler fatally injured by an Ikea dresser that tipped over on him have filed a lawsuit against the Swedish furniture retailer.
The suit, filed in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, claims Ikea sold the dresser despite knowing it was unstable, Philly.com reports. This is the second lawsuit in a year over a fatal tip-over of an Ikea Malm dresser. A similar suit was filed by the mother of a Pennsylvania two-year-old, who died in February 2014 when a dresser fell over on him.
In July 2015, Ikea and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) jointly announced a “repair program” involving 27 million Ikea dressers. The company said the dressers could be unstable if not anchored to the wall, and the company offered purchasers a restraint kit so they could secure the dresser to the wall.
Though a repair program of this type is considered a recall under CPSC regulations, Ikea has avoided using the word recall in its communications. The company stresses that it has not offered to buy back or replace the dressers, according to Philly.com.
Legal documents indicate that the Washington state boy was pinned under a three-drawer Malm dresser on June 11, 2014. The child’s father found him and lifted the dresser off the boy and the mother performed CPR until the ambulance arrived, according to Philly.com. The boy was hospitalized on a ventilator for four days before his parents removed him from life support and he died.
The lawsuit accuses Ikea of designing and selling dressers that do not meet the furniture industry’s safety standard for stability. A lawyer who represents the families of both children who died said Malm dressers are inherently unstable and Ikea has placed the burden for making them safe on consumers. The company has “got it backwards,” he said.
The parents seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, including compensation for medical expenses, funeral expenses, the child’s pain and suffering, and the family’s emotional distress.
Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has U.S. headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. The company would not comment on the latest lawsuit, citing a policy against discussing ongoing litigation. But in a statement Ikea said, “We continue to work cooperatively with the CPSC on the important issue of tip-over safety,” according to Philly.com.
The CPSC says furniture tip-overs are responsible for more than 38,000 emergency-room visits in the United States annually. A child dies every two weeks in a tip-over accident, the agency says. Tip-over incidents most often involve unsecured dressers and televisions. Two thirds of the injuries happen to children under five.
from Parker Waichman http://www.yourlawyer.com/blog/childs-death-prompts-lawsuit-against-ikea-over-unstable-dresser/
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