Ikea will evenly divide a $50 million settlement with the families of Curren Collas, Camden Ellis, and Ted McGee, according to a statement by lawyers for the families.
Ikea will also pay $50,000 to a children’s hospital in each of the boys’ home states, and $100,000 to a non-profit that focuses on furniture tip-over prevention.
At least seven children have died and 36 others were injured by IKEA dressers that tipped over because they were not anchored to the wall.
Tip-over incidents occur when children pull out the drawers and climb up the dresser like stairs. They can be injured by TVs and other things falling off the dresser, crushed by the dresser itself, or suffocate underneath.
The first death was reported in 1989. The next deaths were reported in 2002, 2007, and 2011. After two boys died in 2014, Ikea finally responded by launching a repair program that included a free wall-anchoring kit.
Only about 300,000 kits were distributed, despite a public awareness campaign.
In February 2016, a 22 month-old boy from Minnesota was crushed under a 6-drawer MALM. Four months later, Ikea recalled 29 million dressers and chests and admitted they failed even basic stability tests.
Ikea also agreed to re-design the furniture to meet voluntary tip-over safety standards set by the American furniture industry.
Furniture tip-over accidents injure over 25,000 children per year and cause one death every two weeks, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Source: NBC News