The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced the recall of a line of children’s dressers sold by Rooms To Go, marking the first recall under the STURDY Act (Stop Tip-Overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth Act) since the act took effect in September 2023.
The recall involves 200 six-drawer Mill Valley Jr. youth dressers. The dressers come in white or cherry and measure approximately 57.5 inches long, 35 inches high and 18 inches wide, and weigh 132 pounds. They have a white label on the rear panel with model number “C2192Y-N04” (white) or “C2193Y-N04” (cherry). They were sold in Rooms To Go stores nationwide and online from December 2023 through January 2024 for about $450.
According to the recall notice, the Mill Valley Jr. dressers are unstable if not wall-anchored, posing serious tip-over and entrapment hazards that can result in injuries and death to children. They violate the performance standards of the STURDY Act, which requires that all dressers manufactured and sold in the United States after September 1, 2023, adhere to strict safety rules, including tip-over performance testing that simulates real-world use. The standard includes stability tests that simulate the weight of a child up to 60 pounds interacting with the dresser as well as other real-world conditions like placement on carpet or multiple drawers open at once.
The STURDY Act was passed after years of advocacy by parents who lost their children to dresser tip-over accidents, together with other consumer advocates and child safety experts. Several former Feldman Shepherd clients whose children died from IKEA dresser tip-overs — who wanted to spare other families from tragedies similar to their own — were among the brave parents who advocated for the STURDY Act.
The recall notice instructs consumers to immediately stop using the Mill Valley Jr. dressers and to keep children away from them. Consumers should contact Rooms To Go for a free replacement dresser. Rooms To Go will then schedule a free delivery of the replacement and remove the recalled dresser.
How Many Children Are Injured by Dresser Tip-Overs?
From January 2000 through April 2022 there were 234 reported fatalities from dressers tipping over, including 199 child fatalities, according to the CPSC. The CPSC estimates that there were 84,100 dresser tip-over-related injuries (an estimated annual average of 5,300 injuries) treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments from 2006 through 2021. Of these, an estimated 72 percent were injuries to children.
Unstable dressers are particularly risky for curious toddlers, as they often open multiple dresser drawers or attempt to climb or sit in a drawer. Unfortunately, young children do not have the strength to prevent a dresser from falling or to lift a dresser that has tipped over onto them. Making an already dangerous situation worse, tip-over accidents often occur when parents think their child is safely asleep in bed, and parents may not hear the dresser fall because the child’s body and carpet often cushion the impact. And for every tip-over that causes injury, there are hundreds of “near misses” where a toddler manages to get out of the way, or a nearby adult catches the dresser, or it falls onto a bed or other nearby object.
As the STURDY Act is not retroactive, an untold number of unsafe and unstable dressers still remain in use in people’s homes after the act’s effective date. The CPSC recommends that dressers be anchored to a wall to reduce the risk of tip-overs.
From January 2000 through July 2022, there were 43 recalls in response to dresser tip-over hazards, involving more than 21 million dressers. You can check the CPSC public database of product recalls to find out if the dresser in your home has been recalled.
What Should I Do If My Child Has Been Injured or Killed By a Dresser Tip-Over?
Alan M. Feldman, a co-founding shareholder at Feldman Shepherd and a product liability attorney, said that even before the STURDY Act took effect, product liability law always required that all products be safe for their intended as well as expected use. “Furniture manufacturers bear legal liability when dressers are not built stable and safe for the normal and expected manner in which children interact with them,” he said. Feldman recommends contacting a product liability attorney as soon as possible if your child has been injured by a dresser tip-over.
With respect to this first dresser recall pursuant to the STURDY Act, Feldman commented, “It is encouraging to see the effect this important law is having but manufacturers still need to be more proactive to prevent innocent children from being exposed to the deadly risks presented by non-compliant unstable furniture.”
Feldman, along with shareholder Daniel J. Mann and partner Edward S. Goldis, has recovered nearly $100 million on behalf of four families whose toddlers died from IKEA dresser tip-overs. In another dresser tip-over case, the team recovered what is believed to be the largest recovery for the death of a child in New York.