The ready-to-assemble furniture company, Ikea, has decided to pay $50 million to the families of the three kids who got crushed and died under falling dressers.
Ikea Distributed Free Kit To Make Unsecured Dressers Safe
In June, after the incidents of wrongful deaths of the three toddlers, Ikea acknowledged the tip-over danger of its dressers and commenced a public relations movement, asking customers with unsafe company dressers to collect free wall anchor kits from the outlets and secure them. However, according to company records, out of millions of dressers sold, only 300,000 customers came to procure the security kits.
Later, owing to low turn-around of customers and further reports of child injuries, Ikea announced recalling of about 29 million dressers feared to be unsafe. The furniture seller had also declared it would stop retailing its 'Malm' series merchandise.
"It is clear that there are still unsecured products in customers' homes," said Ikea to NBC News in June. "We believe that taking further action is the right thing to do."
Ikea Ready For Settlement After Long Legal Fight
Three toddlers including 2 year old Curren Collas from Pennsylvania, 22 months old Theodore McGee from Minnesota and 2 year old Camden Ellis from Washington were crushed to death by tipping over off Ikea dressers. Collas and Ellis incidents happened in 2014, whereas, McGee incident took place in 2015.
Since then, the legal fight between the families of deceased kids and Ikea continued. The news about the final settlement of $50 million was announced by the families' lawyer, explaining that the amount will be split equally among the three families.
In addition to this, in memory of the three kids, Ikea will also donate $50,000 to three children's hospitals and $100,000 to a children's safety non-profit organization called Shane's Foundation NFP.
The settlement amount is said to be the highest for a case related to child's death. However, the parents of the three children are far from closure over their kids' death.
"We would never want other parents to have to experience what we have been forced to endure," penned Janet McGee in a statement to Gizmodo. "This has been a tragic, heartbreaking season for us and our family, and no amount of money will make up for the loss of our sweet little boy."
Three Lawsuits Filed Against Ikea
Parents of the deceased kids had filed three lawsuits against the company in Common Pleas Court. The families claimed that knowing about the dangers posed by the unsecured dressers, Ikea still continued to sell them. Whereas, on its part, Ikea made the argument that the parents neglected the safety of their children and did not care to pin the dresser to the wall, as was directed in the instructions in the assembly manual.
