Ikea Reaches Settlement in Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Ikea has agreed to pay a $50 million settlement to the families of three children killed by the company’s dressers tipping over and crushing them. The settlement will be split evenly between the three families living in Pennsylvania, Washington and Minnesota. In addition to the settlement, Ikea will be donating $50,000 to three children’s hospitals in memory of the children, and will make a $100,000 donation to children’s safety nonprofit Shane’s Foundation NFP.
Total Retail’s Take: In June, Ikea announced that it would recall about 29 million Malm dressers, the model that caused the children’s deaths. Prior to this recall, the furniture retailer launched a huge public relations campaign urging customers to secure the dressers to a wall. Ikea should have distributed wall-securing kits to customers to help combat this problem, rather than just giving a warning.
