IKEA Pays $46 Million To Parents Of Toddler Who Was Killed By Three-drawer Dresser

In 2016, Ikea recalled a total of 29 million items it had sold in the US as the products could fall over when unattached to a wall and thus failed the safety tests. But the attempts to withdraw the faulty products were half-hearted as in 2017, a two-year-old boy was crushed to death by one of the company’s dressers and now Ikea will be paying $46million to the boy’s parents as settlement.

In 2016, when the company had called back its products, it had maid $50 million to 3 families, who had split the amount between them.

The company was held liable by the couple Craig and Joleen Dudek, from California and as per their lawyers, they are getting the largest settlement paid for the wrongful death of a child in the United States’ history. Their 4-year-old son, Jozef, died after Ikea’s renowned Malm dresser fell on him in May 2017.

“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,” said a spokesperson for Ikea. “We remain committed to working proactively and collaboratively to address this very important home safety issue. Again, we offer our deepest condolences.”

Neither the condolences nor the compensation will do much for the Dudeks who lost their son in the incident. “We miss him so much. He would be turning 5 this year in April. We never thought that a two-year-old could cause a short 30-inch dresser to tip over and suffocate him. It was only later that we learned that this dresser was designed unstable and did not meet safety standards and that this had happened to other little boys,” said Dudek’s mother, Joleen.

To date, at least nine children have died as a result of Ikea’s unstable and unsafe dressers like Jozef. The four-year-old was put down for a nap by his parents and was alone in his bedroom when he was killed by a three-drawer Malm dresser that fell on him.