The Swedish furniture retailer Ikea agreed to pay a $46 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the parents of a California toddler who was crushed to death by a popular dresser model that had been recalled after at least five other children were killed.
On Monday, a lawyer for Joleen and Craig Dudek, whose son, Jozef, was killed in May 2017, announced the settlement, which was confirmed by an Ikea spokeswoman. In 2016, Ikea reached a $50 million settlement with three other families with children who were killed by furniture that had toppled over.
Mr. and Mrs. Dudek sued Ikea in 2017 in state court in Pennsylvania, where Ikea's North American headquarters is based, arguing that the furniture maker knew that its Malm line of dressers was prone to tip-overs and had failed to warn customers of the unstable design. The company first offered free wall-anchoring kits to its millions of customers as part of a repair program before issuing a recall in June 2016. The Dudeks, of Buena Park, Calif., bought the dresser in 2008 and said in the lawsuit that they were never alerted to the recall by Ikea.
