OUR DEFECTIVE PRODUCT INJURY LAW PRACTICE

Gomez Trial Attorneys is a Southern California personal injury law firm. We represent people who have suffered harm because of someone else’s unreasonably dangerous decisions or actions. One focus of our law practice involves holding manufacturers responsible to account for making and selling dangerous products that cause innocent consumers physical harm.

Over the years, our award-winning team has achieved multiple, multi-million-dollar results on behalf of clients injured by dangerous and defective products. Unlike many smaller personal injury law firms, we have the staffing, experience, and resources to take on even the largest corporate defendants and their defense attorneys in legal actions that compel them to compensate victims for the harm their products caused.

INJURIES CAUSED BY IKEA PRODUCTS

Ikea furniture and accessories have caused numerous injuries to unsuspecting consumers. In fact, Ikea’s website contains an extensive list of recalled items known to cause injury because of their design.

WIDE RANGE OF DANGERS FROM RECALLED IKEA PRODUCTS

The dangers posed by products recently recalled by Ikea include:

• Choking hazards from Ikea items for children;
• Laceration hazards from sharp edges and breakable materials in Ikea furniture;
• Electric shock hazards from Ikea lamps;
• Entrapment hazards in Ikea children’s bedroom furniture;
• Strangulation hazards from Ikea decorative and window-dressing products; and
• Crushing hazards from Ikea furniture that tips over and kills small children.

We urge anyone reading this article to check Ikea’s recall list to find out if their home contains a recalled item. Also, always check the list before purchasing any used Ikea item.

EXTREME HAZARDS FROM IKEA DRESSERS AND CHESTS

In 2016, Ikea recalled its popular “MALM” line of chests and dressers, along with other models after the federal Consumer Products Safety Commission (CSPC) identified and reported a fourth child fatality related to those products. The CSPC deemed the three-drawer dresser unstable, particularly with its upper drawer pulled out. To meet the furniture industry’s safety standards, the MALM requires wall anchors to prevent it from tipping over.

A tipping dresser can crush a child, cause death by suffocation, or lead to serious injuries, including:

• Traumatic brain injury. Harm to a child’s still-developing brain can lead to lifelong deficits and impairments;
• Broken bones. Heavy, falling objects can cause severe broken bones for children, which may require significant medical intervention to fix and lead to lasting disabilities;
• Organ damage. The trauma of absorbing an impact from falling furniture can cause substantial damage to internal organs that lead to a lifetime of health complications.

Ikea dressers and chests have injured dozens of children around the United States in recent years. The company has altered its recent dresser designs to protect children from tip-over risk. However, that does nothing to change the fact that Ikea furniture has already caused widespread injuries and fatalities to vulnerable children, nor does it eliminate the risk of still more dressers tipping-over and causing harm. People do not often think to check for recalls of their furniture. Many Ikea dressers subject to recall may still be out there posing a serious risk to the health and safety of children and other consumers.

If an incident involving any Ikea product injured you or your child, contact Gomez Trial Attorneys right away.

PRODUCT LIABILITY CLAIMS AGAINST IKEA

If you or your child suffered serious injuries because of a defective Ikea product, then contact Gomez Trial Attorneys as soon as possible. Manufacturers like Ikea have a strict legal obligation not to make or sell unreasonably dangerous products that could hurt someone when used for their intended purpose.

Those injured by a defective, unreasonably dangerous product, such as an Ikea MALM dresser that tips over too easily, generally have a legal right to seek compensation from the product’s manufacturer for their injuries and losses. To prove the manufacturer’s legal liability for damages, the injured person’s lawyer might not even need to have evidence that the manufacturer acted negligently (which is to say, that someone who worked for the manufacturer made a knowingly dangerous decision or took a careless action that led to someone else’s harm).

Instead, the lawyer can often prove a legal claim for damages against a manufacturer merely by demonstrating that the product was unreasonably dangerous because of a defect in how it was designed, in how it was built, or in its failure to include adequate instructions or warnings about its potential dangers when used as intended.

For example, a claim against Ikea might argue that its MALM dresser had a defective design that made it prone to tipping, or that Ikea failed to give necessary warnings to purchasers about the tipping danger and of the need to anchor the dresser to a wall. Likewise, a lawyer might prove a claim against Ikea if the company shipped a product that required assembly but had poorly-manufactured parts that did not fit together well enough to prevent the product from falling apart and hurting someone.

Furniture and other home furnishings should never pose a serious health and safety risk; not to children, and not to anyone else. If you, your child, or a loved one suffered an injury connected in any way to an Ikea product that did not function as expected, contact Gomez Trial Attorneys right away for a free consultation to learn about your rights to financial compensation.

THE STURDY ACT AND BEDROOM DRESSERS MADE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Bedroom dressers manufactured after September 1, 2023 have to pass a federal stability test before they can be sold in the United States. Dressers built before that date never had to. Ikea’s recalled MALM chests were designed, built, and sold years earlier, so the federal standard does not reach them and never will.

The rule came out of the STURDY Act, short for Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission adopted ASTM F2057-23 as the mandatory federal safety standard for clothing storage units, at 16 CFR part 1261, effective September 1, 2023. “Clothing storage unit” is the regulation’s term for free-standing furniture meant to hold clothes, the kind of thing that sits in a bedroom. Under that standard, the tests simulate the weight of children up to 60 pounds and account for carpeted flooring, loaded drawers, multiple open drawers, and dynamic force, such as a child climbing on the unit. Loaded drawers count now. A dresser that holds steady on a bare showroom floor with one empty drawer pulled out is not passing anything.

A claim does not depend on whether the standard covers the furniture

If a piece of furniture came down on your child, you may have a claim whether or not that item falls inside the federal rule. The standard sets a minimum for manufacturers building new bedroom furniture. It is not the test for whether a company is liable. Bookcases, television stands, and office cabinets all sit outside the rule, and a bookcase that crushes a toddler can still be the subject of a design defect or failure to warn claim, the same as any other product.

The reverse holds too. A dresser that passes ASTM F2057-23 can still injure someone, and passing it does not close the door on a claim. Meeting a federal minimum is something a manufacturer can point to. It does not end the question.

What the standard actually covers

Two separate filters decide whether a product is in scope, and people usually only hear about one.

The first is product type, and it operates at any size. According to the CPSC rule, ASTM F2057-23 does not cover shelving units such as bookcases, entertainment furniture, office furniture, dining room furniture, jewelry armoires, underbed drawer storage units, accent furniture not intended for bedroom use, laundry storage and sorting units, or built-in units permanently attached to the building. A six-foot solid oak bookcase is excluded because of what it is, no matter how tall or heavy it happens to be.

The second filter is size, and it applies only inside the covered category. The standard reaches free-standing clothing storage units 27 inches or greater in height that also weigh 30 pounds or more and enclose at least 3.2 cubic feet of storage volume. All three thresholds have to be met. Those numbers come from ASTM F2057-23 itself, which the CPSC incorporated by reference; the regulation printed in the Code of Federal Regulations does not state them.

The gap that anchoring left open

Anchors only work if someone installs them. Consumer Reports’ 2018 Furniture Wall Anchors survey of 1,502 U.S. adults, administered by NORC at the University of Chicago, found that 90 percent of consumers have a dresser in their homes but only 10 percent of those with a dresser have anchored it. That finding belongs to Consumer Reports and NORC. The CPSC quoted it in its November 2022 clothing storage unit rulemaking record while explaining why a stability rule was needed.

The numbers in that same record are large. The CPSC reported an estimated 84,100 clothing storage unit tip-over injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2021, an annual average of 5,300, with 60,100 of them (72 percent) to children. The agency’s 2023 annual tip-over report puts an estimated 1,800 children per year in emergency departments for tip-overs involving a chest, bureau, or dresser during 2020 through 2022, which is 28 percent of the estimated 6,400 annual child furniture tip-over injuries.

Find the manufacture date before anything else

On most clothing storage units the date is printed on a label inside a drawer or stapled to the back panel, next to the model name and a lot or batch number. That one line tells a lawyer which rule set applies to the product and which recall lists are worth checking. Photograph the label. Then photograph the wall behind the unit and any anchor hardware, whether it was installed, partly installed, or still sealed in its bag.

This is one addition to what you should already be doing, not a substitute for it. Preserving the furniture in the condition it is in and getting medical attention still come first. Capture the label while you do both.

For a free, confidential consultation about furniture tip-over injuries, call Gomez Trial Attorneys at 833-GET-GOMEZ.

DAMAGES IKEA MAY HAVE TO PAY

Every potential legal claim against a manufacturer like Ikea has its own unique facts and circumstances that affect the potential outcome. No lawyer can ever guarantee that an injured client will recover maximum, or any, compensation for harm caused by a defective product.

However, as a general matter, people injured by defective products may have the right to recover damages as compensation for:

• Medical bills associated with the Ikea furniture accident. Victims of defective products often need substantial medical care to recover from serious injuries; not just the costs for doctors and nurses, but also expenses related to medication, durable medical equipment, home modifications, and long-term therapy. Bills for medical care add up fast, especially in cases of injuries to a child who requires ongoing or lifelong care that insurance may not cover. The experienced product liability lawyers at Gomez Trial Attorneys have the skill and know-how to calculate the full measure of medical expenses an injured person needs now and in the future to ensure that any legal claim seeks an appropriate and fair level of damages.
• Lost wages resulting from defective Ikea product-related injuries. A person injured by a defective product, and the victim’s parents in the case of childhood injury, often miss substantial amounts of work while recuperating or helping a child heal. In a legal claim for damages resulting from a defective product, lawyers will often seek compensation for their clients’ lost wages and lost future earning ability (such as when an injury leaves a client permanently disabled and unable to work).
• Pain, suffering, and diminished quality of life. No one deserves to suffer harm because of a defective consumer product. The damages a victim of a dangerous product may recover often include compensation for the physical pain, emotional suffering, and negative life effects of a senseless, preventable injury. These harms may not come with a “price tag” attached to them, but that does not make them any less real. Money cannot make the pain go away, but it can help to provide victims of defective products and their families the support they need to regain their health and rebuild their lives.
• Compensation for a tragic death. MALM dressers reportedly caused four child deaths before Ikea recalled them. As of last fall, USA Today reported nine total child deaths related to these dangerous products. Those are unimaginable tragedies. No compensation can replace a child. However, seeking damages for wrongful death can help to pay for support and can also force manufacturers like Ikea to change their ways and to do a better job of protecting the most vulnerable members of the public from tragic accidents.

STEPS TO TAKE AFTER AN IKEA FURNITURE-RELATED INJURY

Most people who end up with a broken piece of furniture have one reaction: throw it out, particularly Ikea furniture, which is rarely worth the cost of fixing. However, if that Ikea product that fell apart also injured you, then throwing it out is the worst thing you could do if you want to protect your rights to compensation.

Follow these steps instead:

• Stop using, but keep, the defective furniture in its broken condition. DO NOT throw it away, and DO NOT take it back to the Ikea store for a replacement. The piece of furniture that injures you or a family member is a vital piece of evidence for proving your right to compensation. Disposing of it will put your legal rights in jeopardy by making it harder to prove the existence of a defect that injured you. Take photographs of the broken furniture for good measure, so that you can show your lawyer the condition of the product without disturbing it further.
• Seek immediate, appropriate medical attention. Your legal rights to compensation may also depend on how quickly you sought medical care and how diligently you followed your doctor’s advice. Do not try to “tough it out” through any injury, and do not assume you can treat your child’s injury on your own. Go to the doctor to make sure you give yourself or your loved one the best possible chance of healing properly, and to ensure that medical records document the connection between the failure of a piece of Ikea furniture and your injury.
• Call a product liability lawyer at Gomez Trial Attorneys right away. Act quickly to protect your rights to compensation. You have a limited amount of time to make a claim, but even more importantly, lawyers can usually build the strongest claim when an injury has recently happened. The longer a person waits to seek legal advice after an injury caused by a defective Ikea product, the greater the chances of evidence getting lost, memories fading, or claimants having their legal rights affected by class action lawsuits. Take control of your rights by seeking experienced, diligent legal advice from the team at Gomez Trial Attorneys as soon as possible after any Ikea product injures you or your family member.