In many cases where falling furniture causes injury, furniture manufacturers can be held liable. Filing a furniture tip overs lawsuit could help injured persons receive compensation for physical, emotional, and financial injury incurred from a furniture tip over.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that every 17 minutes, a person in the United States is injured by a piece of furniture tipping over. Experts state that there were 195 deaths caused by furniture tip overs between 2000 and 2016.

After a short decline for a few years, furniture tip over rates are increasing. Furniture tip overs are especially common among children and the elderly.

This problem is partly due to the lack of regulations around furniture weight. The industry has established a voluntary weight standard that should help prevent furniture tipping over, but these are just suggested guidelines, and furniture makers do not have to adhere to them.

The standard is that any dresser taller than 30 inches should be able to remain upright even if there is 50 pounds of weight hanging off of one of its drawers. However, furniture makers aren’t required to conduct testing to ensure that dressers meet that standard, and many pieces of furniture lack comparable standards.

Many furniture makers regularly sell furniture that does not meet an industry standard, has not been tested to see if it will tip over easily, and that poses a high risk of tipping over when used in the home.

In 2016, Ikea had to recall thousands of dressers after multiple people were killed by a dresser falling over on top of them, and later, developed solutions to prevent furniture from tipping over. Consumers have already filed lawsuits against many furniture makers, holding them accountable for injuries done by their products.

Dressers and other clothing storage units are the most likely pieces of furniture to tip over, accounting for least 11 percent of furniture tip over deaths. Weight in the drawers of a dresser can make the dresser dangerous even when used normally, because the weight is shifted forward when the drawer is pulled out, sometimes causing it to topple onto the person opening the drawer.

Consumer Reports has recommended weight regulations that are more stringent than those recommended by the furniture industry, saying that dressers should be able to hold 60 instead of 50 pounds of weight. This determination was made after Consumer Reports tested 24 dressers, representing a selection of dressers available on the market.

Tragically, most people killed and injured by furniture tip overs are young children, who are too small and weak to brace themselves if pushed over by furniture, or to push a piece of furniture off of themselves. Additionally, young children may be injured by furniture if they jostle it more than an adult would, increasing the likelihood of the piece of furniture tipping over.
Lawyers are now investigating consumer claims of injury caused by dangerous furniture tip overs. If you or a family member, especially a child, were injured by a furniture tip over, you may have a legal claim.