BEAVER — An attorney representing the estate of two toddlers killed last summer by a falling dresser has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the dresser manufacturer.

The lawsuit also names the Babies R’ Us store in Cranberry Township that sold the dresser and the employee who assisted the parents that day.

David and Jennifer Beatty lost their two children, 3-year-old Ryeley and 2-year-old Brooklyn, on July 4 when the dresser fell on them.

Brooklyn Beatty died on the day of the accident while her sister died two days later.

Nick Urick, an attorney representing the two girls’ estate, said Wednesday that he’s filed the suit to bring awareness to the situation in the hopes that something like this doesn’t happen to other families.

“If you look at the statistics on how many kids are injured or killed in this manner, we’re trying to bring awareness to that and to help other families avoid tragedies like this one,” he said.

Urick, who filed the suit in Beaver County court last week, asserted that the dresser was improperly designed by the manufacturer and that the manufacturer should be held accountable for the accident.

“The rationale behind the suit is that the furniture that killed them was designed improperly,” he said. “It created a risk of harm.”

Urick said the manufacturer is Baby Cache in New Jersey.

The store and its employee are named in the suit, Urick said, because the dresser was an assembled model that was sold on clearance without any safety features, warning labels or instructions.

“They sold it in a defective condition,” he said.

Urick has no idea when the case might be heard.

Beaver County prosecutors eventually charged David Beatty with two counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the toddlers’ deaths, saying the accident was preventable and that Beatty didn’t respond to the girls soon enough.

A judge last month dismissed most of the charges against Beatty, although he and his wife still will stand trial in March on child endangerment charges.