Ikea will pay $46 million to the parents of the 2-year-old boy who was crushed beneath a recalled dresser, according to the family's lawyers.
The settlement comes more than two years following the death of Jozef Dudek, 2, who was crushed under a Malm dresser after his father put him down for a nap in their California home in May 2017. Jozef was the eighth child known to have died by an unsecured Ikea dresser toppling forward, and the first death confirmed after the furniture giant's historic recall of 29 million of the company's bureaus in 2016.
Jozef's parents, of Buena Park, Calif., did not know the dresser had been recalled at the time of their son's death, attorney Daniel Mann, of Philadelphia's Feldman Shepherd law firm, has said.
"We never thought" that the 2-year-old could cause a dresser "to topple over and suffocate him," the child's parents, Joleen and Craig Dudek, said in a statement after the settlement was announced. "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."
"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," Ikea said in a statement. "We remain committed to working proactively and collaboratively to address this very important home safety issue."
Ikea's 2016 recall was the largest furniture recall in history, involving not just dressers from its Malm line, which at the time had been linked to at least four deaths, but dozens of other models sold by the retailer over decades. The company, which has its North American headquarters in Conshohocken, Pa., agreed to give full refunds in most cases.
Six months after the recall, in December 2016, Ikea paid $50 million to the parents of the three toddlers, including 2-year-old Curren Collas of West Chester, Pa., who died after a dresser toppled onto them in 2014 and 2015.
The company's recall efforts also came under scrutiny after only 3% of the dressers had been repaired or returned through January 2017, a group of advocates that includes the Consumer Federation of America said. After two toddlers died in 2017, the company launched an informational campaign about the recall and sent crews to consumers' homes to either anchor dressers or collect them.
An estimated 5,800 children under the age of 7 were injured from furniture tip-overs between 2015 and 2017, according to a December 2018 report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal regulatory agency that oversees consumer product recalls.
The Dudeks said they would donate $1 million of the settlement proceeds to three organizations that work to protect kids from dangerous products _ Kids in Danger, Consumer Reports, and the Consumer Federation of America.
