What to Do After an Ikea Tipover

What to Do After an Ikea Tipover Consumers spend billions annually on furniture they trust will work as the manufacturer suggests it will, provided all instructions are followed. From dressers to beds and tables, big brands and small family companies produce millions of hardwood and soft furniture for hard-working people like you. Across America, an adult or child is killed or injured every 17 minutes due to falling appliances, televisions, or a piece of furniture tips over. Incidents of dresser tip-overs alone have killed at least 212 people since 2000, mostly children 6 and younger. The most prominent manufacturer of furniture that is known to tipover is Ikea. Ikea is a Sweden-based furniture manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. It was founded by a teenage boy, Ingvar Kamprad, in 1943, and is one of America's most loved furniture brands. As an injured party, you may not understand what steps to take after an accident that involved falling Ikea dressers. We provide some clarity below.

How to Handle Ikea Furniture Tipovers

If any injury occurs to you or your family due to Ikea furniture tipovers, follow these basic post-accident steps:

Receive Medical Care

You should seek immediate medical attention for yourself or your loved one. The younger the individual, the more serious tipover accidents can be since Ikea dressers can reach more than 100 pounds. Moreover, a doctor should record and treat the injuries. It will help you if you file a lawsuit against the company later on.

Get Your Police Report

Most police departments make completed police reports available 24 to 48 hours after the incident. Grab your copy and keep it safe; if you retain a product liability attorney down the road, they will use this report and information they gather to build your case against Ikea. Your lawyer can help you obtain that copy as well.

Preserve the Area

Take a photograph of the furniture and the area where the tipover occurred. Don't move the furniture any more than necessary to remove the person on which it fell. Don't throw the furniture away or clean it until your product liability lawyer has a chance to inspect it. Make sure to comply with police reporting; this will only help you. Allow medics to do their job, and let detectives perform their investigation. Their documentation will come in handy later.

Hire an Ikea Tipover Attorney

The most important step is to hire an attorney to file a claim against Ikea for the injuries or death you or your child sustained. While compensation is never guaranteed, the right attorney is more likely to have the resources necessary to hold a bigger corporation accountable for their role in your or your child's death.

Why Do I Need an Attorney?

In lawsuits similar to what the Dudek family filed on behalf of Josef, negligence was the sole representative of their wrongful death claim. More specifically, Ikea was reckless in their failure to sufficiently redesign the MALM dresser line so further deaths and injuries would subside, and failed to stop selling their MALM line altogether. These allegations are tough to fight without an attorney who knows how to cite relevant statutes and case law. Ikea has counsel ready to defend claims against it regardless of how complex or obvious they are. Fighting opposing counsel without knowledge of product liability law could prove catastrophic to your claim. If Ikea furniture has tipped over and you or any other family members are injured, there is no better time to retain an attorney than now. Attorneys are experienced in:

• Pursuing cases against product manufacturers with defense teams of their own. Ikea has a team of experienced defense lawyers, like other companies and firms.
• Understanding what legal grounds exist for suing Ikea. Both time and money are necessary to fight claims, yet having a legal basis to hold Ikea accountable is of greater importance.
• Getting injured persons compensated. Punishing the negligent party and forcing them to change their manufacturing and design processes is one goal of litigation in Ikea tipover cases, but to the injured person, compensation for both calculable and incalculable costs is of higher importance.

Tortious Misrepresentation in Ikea Tipover Accidents

If the consumer relied on misinformation in making the furniture purchase, and the dresser caused an injury, the consumer may take civil action to recover damages the misrepresentation caused. The three types of tortious misrepresentation are:

1. Intentionally misleading the injured party by making statements that are knowingly false about products;
2. Failing to properly convey or assert facts whether statements are true (negligent misrepresentation); and
3. A manufacturer's public announcement regarding the safety of a product that ends up being unsafe.

If any of these components exist in your Ikea tipover claim, you could base your lawsuit off tortious misrepresentation and potentially be compensated for losses that misrepresentation caused.

You Have the Right to Hold Ikea Accountable

Once an Ikea tipover happens, parents of children and sometimes the parents themselves are in pain, are angry, or have lost their lives. It is vital to contact an experienced Ikea tipover lawyer when you want the furniture giant to be held accountable for preventable tipovers. Conservative estimates state that thousands of injured or deceased children may have been victims of furniture tipovers, yet those individuals have not stepped forward as of yet. If you are the parent or guardian of a child that falls into this category, please reach out today. Doing so is perhaps the single greatest step you can take for yourself and your child. Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA 800 North Belcher Road Clearwater, FL 33765 (727) 451-6900 https://www.dolmanlaw.com/legal-services/ikea-tipover-lawsuit-attorney/