When Craig Dudek entered his 2-year-old son Jozef’s bedroom on May 24, 2017, he was met with every parent’s worst nightmare. A 70-pound, IKEA MALM three-drawer dresser had fallen on top of his son, pinning him between its drawers, and causing a fatal suffocation injury. Dudek, who had placed Jozef in bed for a nap shortly before the accident, did not hear the dresser fall because his body cushioned the impact.

Jozef’s accident was not a “freak” occurrence. It was a predictable outcome for a dresser, which by design, was unstable and prone to easily tip over. Unfortunately, similar accidents are playing out in homes, and particularly in children’s bedrooms, throughout the United States, with alarming frequency, and the problem is not limited to the IKEA brand. However, Jozef’s accident was particularly disturbing in that IKEA recalled all dressers in its MALM line in 2016 after three children died from tip-over incidents. Despite being “IKEA Friends and Family” members and having purchased the dresser in 2008 with an IKEA credit card, Jozef’s parents never received notice of the recall.