Alan Feldman Honored by National Board of Trial Advocacy with President’s Award

Feldman Shepherd is pleased to announce that co-founding partner Alan M. Feldman has been honored as a recipient of the National Board of Trial Advocacy’s President’s Award. The award recognizes members of NBTA for their unique accomplishments and efforts which deserve to be known to its entire membership, the legal profession, and the communities that they work in. Mr. Feldman is recognized for his litigation of multiple IKEA dresser tip-over cases that have helped to keep children safe in their bedrooms. He will receive the President’ Award during a national Board of Directors meeting on October 23, 2021.

Mr. Feldman practices in all manner of catastrophic personal injury litigation ― including cases arising from unsafe cars and trucks, automobile and tractor-trailer accidents, sexual abuse on campuses and dangerous and defective products, with a particular focus on products intended for children and infants.

In 2020, Mr. Feldman achieved a $46 million recovery on behalf of the parents of a 2-year-old boy who was fatally injured in May 2017 by the tip-over of an IKEA MALM dresser, which unbeknownst to the boy’s parents had been recalled. The settlement is believed to be the largest child wrongful death recovery in American history. It marks the fourth dresser tip-over case that Mr. Feldman has litigated against IKEA and raises the total amount that he has recovered for victims of IKEA dresser tip-overs to almost $100 million. The settlements for all four cases contained several non-monetary terms that Mr. Feldman insisted upon to protect other children from deadly accidents and to help educate parents as to the risk, including an agreement by IKEA in 2016 to only sell chests and dressers in the U.S. that meet or exceed the national voluntary safety standard for clothing storage units.

Also in 2020, Mr. Feldman filed a class action lawsuit against IKEA in connection with its initial recall in June 2016 and “re-announced” recall in November 2017 of nearly 30 million dressers that do not comply with the furniture industry’s voluntary safety standards and which IKEA knew are prone to tip over. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleges that IKEA made “feeble” efforts in advising consumers of the recalls and was not honoring the recall terms. It is believed to be the first lawsuit in Pennsylvania to address whether companies may bear legal liability when they conduct deficient recalls.

“Those of us that are fortunate enough to work with Alan every day are continuously impressed by the intensity of his drive and his creative lawyering. Nowhere are these skills on greater display than when his focus centers on protecting children from unnecessary hazards. We are proud of our partner and grateful to the NBTA for bestowing this honor upon him,” said Feldman Shepherd Co-Managing Shareholder Mark W. Tanner.