Furniture Tip-Over Hazards: What Parents Should Know

Your home should be a safe place for yourself and your loved ones. This is particularly true if you have young children. As a parent, you likely take steps to minimize your kids’ exposure to potential hazards in the home. However, what some parents may not realize is that certain common home fixtures can unexpectedly cause harm or even death.

Consider the example of drawers and other such items of furniture. Statistically, it’s not exceptionally uncommon for these items to tip over. If such an item were to tip over on an able-bodied adult, depending on the size of the item of furniture, it may cause significant injury. The consequences could be more severe if an item of this size were to tip over onto a child.

As a parent, it’s important that you understand this hazard and what you can do to guard against it. It’s also important that you be familiar with your potential legal rights should your child or another member of your family be injured in a furniture tip-over accident.

Injuries resulting from furniture tip-overs are perhaps more common than many realize. Per the Consumer Product Safety Commission, every 17 minutes in the U.S., someone is injured in an accident involving furniture or a similar item tipping over. Certain items of furniture are more likely than others to be involved in these types of accidents. For example, dressers and other items of furniture used to store clothing account for a relatively significant percentage of the injuries to children in furniture tip-over accident cases.

Children are particularly vulnerable during these types of incidents for several reasons. Naturally, their size and physical development leave them at greater risk of being injured than others might be. Additionally, furniture tip-over accidents may result from children playing on or near such items of furniture. This highlights yet another reason why it’s always vital to supervise young children when they are playing. Even a seemingly innocuous fixture in a child’s room could cause serious harm if it tips over.

Guarding Against Furniture Tip-Over Accidents

Statistically, many cases of children being killed or severely injured in tip-over accidents involve children alone in their rooms. However, leaving a child unattended isn’t the only way a parent might accidentally leave a child at risk.

Research also shows these accidents may involve TVs causing injury when they tip over along with drawers. Thus, parents are discouraged from placing TVs and similar items atop high-dressers in kids’ bedrooms, play rooms, and other such spaces.

Parents should also consider tip-over hazards when designing rooms their children spend a lot of time in. If it’s possible to keep these spaces entirely free of dressers and other potentially unsafe pieces of furniture, that’s ideal. If not, parents should opt for heavier dressers and similar items, as these tend to be more rooted to the floor and are thus less likely to tip over. It’s also wise for parents to conduct some basic consumer research before purchasing any furniture for rooms their children spend time in. They might learn that certain pieces of furniture they were considering purchasing actually have reputations for being involved in tip-over accidents. Sadly, the fact that an item was involved in such an accident doesn’t immediately mean it will no longer be available in stores.

How Industry Standards Contribute to the Problem

Unfortunately, in the furniture industry and related industries in the U.S., it’s often not mandatory that companies perform any sort of rigorous testing to guard against tip-over accidents. Although some companies do strive to meet certain safety standards, others may not. Such companies might wait for accidents to occur before deciding to recall potentially dangerous products from stores.

That does not necessarily mean you have no legal options if your child was harmed because a piece of furniture tipped over. It might be possible to show that the item caused harm because it was defective or otherwise unreasonably dangerous. In these circumstances, you could file a product liability claim or lawsuit seeking compensation for medical bills and other such losses related to your child’s case.

Do you believe you have such a case in the Boston, Massachusetts area or surrounding areas? If so, our team of Boston child injury lawyers at Swartz & Swartz PC is on hand to review your case, answer your questions, and provide aggressive representation if you decide to work with us. Learn more by contacting us online today or calling us at (617) 742-1900 to schedule your free consultation.

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