{"id":8036,"date":"2020-01-09T14:44:07","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T19:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10028\/uncategorized\/ikea-to-pay-46-million-in-wrongful-death-claim\/"},"modified":"2020-01-09T14:44:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T19:44:07","slug":"ikea-to-pay-46-million-in-wrongful-death-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/article\/ikea-to-pay-46-million-in-wrongful-death-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Ikea To Pay $46 Million in Wrongful Death Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The home furniture giant agreed to pay the <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/investigations\/2020\/01\/06\/ikea-settles-46-million-after-dresser-kills-child\/2821182001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">record amount<\/a><\/u> to resolve a claim that its dresser tipped over, killing a 2-year-old boy.<\/p>\n<p>The settlement is almost three times greater than a similar one the company reached with three families in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Although the dresser was only thirty inches high, it fell onto Jozef Dudek and suffocated him.<\/p>\n<p>Due to a large number of similar incidents dating back to the 1980s, the company recalled these dressers in 2016. The parents said they were unaware of the recall.<\/p>\n<p>The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that tip-overs kill about 28,000 Americans each year.<\/p>\n<p>Half of these victims are children.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Establishing Liability in Dangerous Product Claims<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In many claims, such as slip-and-falls or medical malpractice, victim\/plaintiffs must establish negligence, or a lack of care.<\/p>\n<p>Frequently, it is difficult to make such a showing, even though the burden of proof is only a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not).<\/p>\n<p>Dangerous product claims are different. Generally, manufacturers are <u><a href=\"\/practice-areas\/personal-injury\/\">strictly liable<\/a><\/u> for injuries due to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Design defects and<\/li>\n<li>Manufacturing defects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some people may be familiar with the early 1970s Ford Pinto controversy.<\/p>\n<p>In response to consumer demands for small, fuel-efficient vehicles, Ford set out to produce the smallest car that had rolled off the assembly line since 1907.<\/p>\n<p>Ford\u2019s chairman at the time, Lee Iacocca, supposedly insisted that the vehicle not weigh an ounce more than 2,000 pounds and not cost a dime more than $2,000.<\/p>\n<p>To save weight and money, engineers placed the gas tank between the rear axle and rear bumper and did not include available self-sealing technology.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the gas tank often ruptured and exploded, even in low-speed collisions.<\/p>\n<p>Ford executives debated the matter and concluded that paying wrongful death settlements was cheaper than making the Pinto safe.<\/p>\n<p>This episode is a good illustration of a design defect.<\/p>\n<p>The Pinto was unsafe while it was still on the drawing board. So, Ford was liable for damages as a matter of law.<\/p>\n<p>Victims needed only prove causation.<\/p>\n<p>Ford\u2019s negligence was only relevant for damages purposes, as set forth below.<\/p>\n<p>The seemingly endless <a href=\"\/practice-areas\/business-litigation\/defective-takata-airbag-injuries\/\">Takata airbag saga<\/a> is an example of a manufacturing defect.<\/p>\n<p>As designed airbags are both safe and effective. There is no telling how many lives these devices have saved since they first appeared in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Operationally, airbags are delicate gadgets. The airbag must inflate in the blink of an eye but not explode.<\/p>\n<p>For many years, Takata used a stable chemical propellant that fit the bill very well. In the late 1990s, the company switched to ammonium nitrate.<\/p>\n<p>This volatile chemical was used in the Oklahoma City truck bomb.<\/p>\n<p>Ammonium nitrate is particularly unstable in high heat and humidity environments.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this change, which was a manufacturing defect, airbags exploded and people died.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with huge fines and multiple lawsuits, the multinational company eventually declared bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/practice-areas\/business-litigation\/product-liability\/\">Defective product<\/a> victims are entitled to compensatory damages for their economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, jurors also award significant punitive damages in these cases.<\/p>\n<p>Such damages punish the company and deter future misconduct.<\/p>\n<p>Many companies in these situations are like Ford and Takata. They blatantly put profits before people.<\/p>\n<p>In the above case, Ikea knew that the dresser was dangerous. The government had even told the company to stop selling it.<\/p>\n<p>The reckless disregard of a child\u2019s safety explains the large punitive damages award in this case.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Foreseeable Misuse Doctrine<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Since so much is at stake, company lawyers look for any loophole possible to reduce or deny compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Product misuse is one such loophole.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially, product misuse is an offshoot of contributory negligence, which is a very common defense in most negligence claims.<\/p>\n<p>Contributory negligence, and product misuse, shift blame for the accident from the tortfeasor (negligent actor) to the victim. Yanking the drawers out of a dresser is obviously product misuse.<\/p>\n<p>However, such conduct is a foreseeable misuse.<\/p>\n<p>This doctrine <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/1250901\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sharply limits<\/a><\/u> the contributory negligence defense in product liability cases.<\/p>\n<p>The defense only applies in extreme misuse situations. Using a lawnmower to trim the ivy on a brick wall is an example of such extreme misuse. Anything less than that is arguably foreseeable.<\/p>\n<p>This rule is just one of the many complexities in a defective products claim.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s very important that your attorney have both significant experience and significant resources.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, it\u2019s very difficult to obtain fair compensation in these matters.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Ascertaining Damages in a Wrongful Death Claim<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>If the victim survives, both economic and noneconomic damages are relatively easy to calculate.<\/p>\n<p>Generally, attorneys add up the medical bills and multiply that figure by two, three, or four to determine noneconomic damages.<\/p>\n<p>But what if those economic losses involve the lost future earning capacity of a small child? And what sum of money could possibly compensate for an emotional loss so devastating?<\/p>\n<p>To determine a reasonable amount of lost future earnings, many New York personal injury attorneys partner with accountants and other financial professionals.<\/p>\n<p>Using models which are convincing to jurors but frankly make our eyes glaze over, accountants can usually determine a fair sum.<\/p>\n<p>The amount of economic losses largely determines the amount of noneconomic losses.<\/p>\n<p>The actual amount largely depends on the facts of the case.<\/p>\n<p>Procedurally, New York wrongful death survivors cannot obtain compensation for their own grief and suffering.<\/p>\n<p>Such compensation might be available in a separate action, under a theory like negligent infliction of emotional distress. The rules are a bit different when the decedent was a child and the claimants are the child\u2019s parents.<\/p>\n<p>No amount of money can truly compensate for a wrongful death, but the compensation available in a defective products case assuages the family\u2019s grief.<\/p>\n<p>For a free consultation with an <u><a href=\"\/contact-us\/\">experienced personal injury attorney in New York<\/a><\/u>, contact Napoli Shkolnik . We do not charge upfront legal fees in defective product or wrongful death claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The home furniture giant agreed to pay the record amount to resolve a claim that its dresser tipped over, killing a 2-year-old boy. The settlement is almost three times greater&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[772],"tags":[816,820,851,964,987],"class_list":["post-8036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-litigation","tag-defective-products","tag-product-liability","tag-personal-injury-lawyers-near-me","tag-personal-injury","tag-wrongful-death"],"acf":[],"page_builder_type":"classic","gutenberg_data":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}