Defective Product Lawyers in Philadelphia

Defective Products Claims

You expect the products you purchase or use to function properly. Perhaps more importantly, the law requires that all consumer products be safe for their intended use. That’s because when a product malfunctions or when it’s not designed safely, innocent people can suffer permanent injuries or even death. Our product liability attorneys represent clients injured by a vast array of defective recreational, consumer, and industrial products, including:

• Defectively designed cars and trucks
• Industrial equipment
• Cranes and lift equipment
• Children’s products
• Baby products
• Unsafe furniture (tip-overs)
• Lawnmowers
• Power tools
• Hunting accessories and devices
• Household products and appliances

Dangerous Children’s and Infant Products

The product liability team at Feldman Shepherd has secured many multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements in product liability litigation in both state and federal courts throughout the United States. We are nationally recognized for our IKEA dresser tip-over litigation, in which we recovered nearly $100 million on behalf of four families whose children were fatally injured by tip-overs of unstable IKEA MALM dressers, including a $46 million recovery that is believed to be the largest child wrongful death recovery in American history.

The IKEA settlements contained several non-monetary terms that our product liability attorneys insisted upon to protect other children from deadly tip-overs and to help educate parents as to the risks of unstable dressers, including an agreement by IKEA in 2016 to only sell chests and dressers in the U.S. that meet or exceed the then-national voluntary safety standard for clothing storage units.

Our advocacy in the IKEA cases shined a spotlight on dresser tip-over tragedies, involving many brands of furniture, which were playing out at an alarming frequency in homes, and particularly in children’s bedrooms, throughout the United States. The IKEA cases—along with tireless advocacy by grieving parents, consumer organizations, and elected representatives—prompted Congress in 2022 to pass the STURDY Act (Stop Tip-Overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth Act), which provided for a mandatory safety standard for the stability of all dressers made or sold in the United States.      

In other litigation that led to dangerous products being taken off the market, we secured settlements of $8 million and $7.25 million for the families of two infants who suffocated to death in infant slings and a confidential settlement for a two-year-old boy who sustained life-threatening internal injuries after swallowing tiny magnets that had become dislodged from a magnetic toy.

In another furniture defect case against IKEA, our product liability attorneys secured a $13.5 million settlement for the family of an 18-month-old girl who suffocated and died when her head and neck became entrapped in a cutout (designed to be used instead of handles) in the bottom drawer of an IKEA STUVA wardrobe that was designed specifically for use in children’s bedrooms.

We also represent many families whose babies died in infant loungers, rockers, and sleepers, which do not comply with the safe sleep recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Our attorneys are also at the forefront of litigation involving serious injuries and deaths to children caused by the ingestion of water beads.