Second STURDY Act Recall: CPSC Tags ‘Rooms To Go’ Dressers (Again)

For the second time in less than two months, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced the recall of a line of Rooms To Go dressers that do not comply with the performance standards of the STURDY Act and accordingly pose a tip-over risk to young children. This is the second STURDY Act (Stop Tip-Overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth Act) recall since the act took effect in September 2023, and the second STURDY Act violation for Rooms To Go.

The recall, announced on June 20, 2024, involves 400 Cedona Natural View six-drawer dressers. The dressers are 68 inches long, 18 inches wide, 36 inches tall, and weigh about 238 pounds. They have a white label on the back with model number 33117082 printed on it in black ink. They were sold in Rooms To Go stores nationwide and online from November 2023 through February 2024 for about $1,000.

According to the recall notice, the Cedona Natural View dressers are unstable if not wall-anchored and pose 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 Cedona Natural View dressers. 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.

The recall of the Cedona dressers comes less than two months after 200 Mill Valley youth dressers sold by Rooms To Go from December 2023 through January 2024 were recalled for similar STURDY Act violations.

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 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, product liability law always required that all products be safe for their intended as well as expected use. “The unfortunate history and frequency of dresser tip-overs is well-known within the furniture industry. Furniture makers bear legal liability when dressers are not built safe and stable for how children are known and expected to interact with them,” said Feldman. He added that “with the passage of the STURDY Act, clear, mandatory performance standards are now the law of the land.” He recommends contacting a product liability attorney as soon as possible if your child has been injured by a dresser tip-over.

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.