Dive Brief:

• After two days of mediation, the families of three children who died after Ikea dressers tipped onto them have reached a $50 million settlement with the Swedish furniture maker. The money will be evenly divided among the families, their attorneys Alan M. Feldman, Daniel J. Mann and Edward S. Goldis said Thursday.

• In addition to those damages, Ikea (which confirmed the settlement to Reuters but declined to comment pending the court’s approval) has also agreed to donate $50,000 to children’s hospitals in each toddler's home state in their memories.

• Ikea also will give $100,000 to Shane’s Foundation, an organization devoted to children’s safety with a focus on furniture tip-over prevention and education.

Dive Insight:

Ikea has long tagged much of its furniture with warnings to consumers that items must be secured to walls to guarantee safety, but that approach fell short this year. In June the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 29 million Ikea chests and dressers blamed in multiple deaths and injuries of young children. Some 6.6 million were also recalled in Canada, and the recall was later extended to Chinese consumers after outcry there. 

The Malm dressers had been under criticism for a while, and in fact were the subject of a less stringent U.S. recall last year that called for “repairs” and also recommended anchoring kits. Ikea previously said that its dressers are designed to meet European safety standards, not American guidelines: Because American guidelines are voluntary, there was no requirement to meet the higher standard, though all other furniture makers do meet that standard in the U.S., according to the families’ attorneys.

That changes with the agreement announced Thursday. Moving forward, Ikea will only sell chests and dressers in the U.S. that meet or exceed the voluntary safety standard for clothing storage units, and will increase funding for its “Secure It” program to raise awareness of the risk of tip-overs, including national television and internet ads, digital communications and in-store warnings, said Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock & Dodig LLP, the legal firm representing the families.

“The evidence developed in the cases showed that IKEA was aware of other deaths and injuries arising from furniture tip-overs that failed to meet minimum safety standards, but nevertheless refused to re-design its furniture products to be more stable and tip-resistant,” the attorneys said in a statement. “It was not until after the death of Ted McGee [a two-year-old asphyxiated when a six-drawer Malm dresser toppled over on him] that Ikea finally agreed to stop the sale of its defective furniture and recall the Malm and other models of chests and dressers which failed to meet minimum standards for safety and stability.”