Re: Ex-tenants say mold caused ailments, death

[Guest guest]

How do these people live with themselves I'll never know. I'm so

sorry for them and the lawyer who was fined.

>

>

> _http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/67141.php_

> (http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/67141.php)

> Published: 10.29.2007

> Ex-tenants say mold caused ailments, death

> Judge throws out lawsuits, fines attorney

> A.J. FLICK

> Tucson Citizen

> The wall outside the bedroom where Ezekiel Mark Bullis

> spent all five weeks of his brief life in 2001 still weeps

> black mold.

> Streaks of peppery mold seep from underneath slats of

> siding on the two-story-high wall at The Overlook at

> Pantano apartment complex, 1800 S. Pantano Road, a 443-unit

> complex south of East 22nd Street.

> The official cause of Ezekiel's death is listed as sudden

> infant death syndrome, but his grandmother blames the mold

> that infested her apartment.

> " At first I thought, 'Mold can't do this to a person,' "

> Bullis said. " But we went and did research, and we

> found that it can. That's when we started putting two and

> two together. "

> On Oct. 22, Bullis returned to the Overlook, which used to

> be called Eastside Place, for the first time since she

> moved out in 2001.

> Bullis pointed to the window sill of the second-floor

> apartment where Ezekiel lived.

> " It makes me mad to see toys are sitting there, " Bullis

> said. " Children live there. "

> Bullis and more than 100 former residents of the complex

> sued the owners, Dell Loy and Randy Hansen, and their

> company, Wasatch Property Management of Logan, Utah, in

> several lawsuits beginning in September 2002 that were

> eventually grouped together in two separate suits.

> Former residents complained of numerous respiratory

> problems and other ailments. In addition, within 10 days,

> Ezekiel and another infant in the same apartment building

> died with toxic mold in their lungs, court records said.

> Medical experts on both sides of the lawsuit agreed that

> both babies died of SIDS, even though the cause of death

> for one infant is officially listed as " accidental

> smothering. "

> Pima County Superior Court Judge effectively

> threw out both lawsuits, believing experts hired by the

> Hansens' team of attorneys who said mold can only make

> asthma worse. also ordered personal injury attorney

> Harold Hyams to pay $750,000 in court fees, saying he

> caused unnecessary delays.

> That fine and others have marred the case and left Hyams

> spending nearly as much of his time defending himself

> against complaints by judges about his conduct and errors

> as he has pursuing the tenants' complaints against the

> apartment complex's owners and managers.

> Bullis said it's who is causing unnecessary delays by

> not issuing a final judgment on her lawsuit, which is

> needed before Hyams can file an appeal.

> " Judge said Harold made the case all about himself,

> but it was Judge who made the case about Harold and

> not the mold, " said Robin s, another plaintiff.

> " We want the jury to decide the case, " said s. " I'm

> gonna fight this till the end. We've got so much proof, but

> Judge won't see any of it. "

> In a motion asking to reconsider his sanction against

> Hyams, legal ethics expert and attorney Mark I. on,

> who was hired by Hyams' attorney defending him before the

> state bar, said defense attorneys filed nearly four times

> as many substantive motions, those requiring hearings or

> more pleadings, as Hyams - 223 to Hyams' 62.

> Hyams also was fined $20,000 by the Arizona Court of

> Appeals over mistakes he made in a motion he filed in that

> court challenging 's decision to dismiss punitive

> damages in the first lawsuit.

> Dell Loy Hansen filed a complaint against Hyams with the

> State Bar of Arizona. The reason for the complaint was not

> available. The Bar said it has no open investigations on Hyams and

> dismissed one complaint in August. The Bar doesn't disclose

> details on complaints unless probable cause to hold further

> proceedings is found.

> About 100 residents and their children were included in the

> first lawsuit. The first blow came in May 2005, when a

> dozen of the former tenants were dismissed from the

> lawsuit.

> , who inherited the case from another judge, ruled

> against the remaining former tenants, saying the evidence

> didn't support their claims.

> recently issued a similar ruling in the second

> lawsuit, which included about 115 residents, some of whom

> moved into apartments vacated by the original group of

> plaintiffs.

> All of the dismissals came after Frye hearings, in which a

> judge decides whether evidence from expert witnesses is

> credible enough to present to a jury.

> In both cases, decided that Hyams had not presented

> enough evidence that mold causes more harm than worsening

> asthma, though he also dismissed claims involving

> plaintiffs with worsened asthma.

> The Hansens and attorneys on both sides declined to comment

> while the second lawsuit is still active. Hyams argued

unsuccessfully in

> court that an Arizona

> repressed-memory case, Logerquist v. McVey, required that a

> jury decide which expert testimony is credible.

> Among Hyams' experts were Tucson allergy expert Dr. Mark

> Sneller, a pollen and mold identification expert approved

> by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology

> who writes a syndicated column and often appears in the

> national press, and Terranova of Nevada-based Terra

> Nova Inc., who lectures nationally on mold remediation.

> Sneller and Terranova both found " extreme " amounts of mold

> at the complex.

> " I was on the verge of vomiting from the moldy odors inside

> these apartments, " Terranova said in his 2002 report. " I

> found the apartments with the infant deaths to have the

> worst mold contamination of all. "

> Terranova recommended demolition of the complex.

> " There's no evidence that exposure to mold causes

> anything, " Wasatch attorney D. Hiles said in an

> Oct. 15 hearing.

> It isn't enough for the former tenants to prove that mold

> was in their apartments when they lived there, Hiles said.

> They must prove that mycotoxins, the poisonous substance in

> mold, were present and no such testing was done, Hiles

> said.

> In addition, he said, none of the plaintiffs was tested for

> mold allergies or reactions while they were living at the

> property.

> " We have no ability to establish that mold caused any

> injuries, " he said.

> " I was mad at them for saying there's nothing wrong with

> mold, that you can't suffer any harm living in it, " said

> Kuuleme s, who moved into the complex in 2000 with

> her husband and three children ages 8, 9 and 12.

> " We were getting sick, and it was ridiculous to be told

> there was nothing wrong with us, " s said. " We did

> not have these problems before the mold. "

> s, Bullis and s all report similar ailments

> they and their relatives contracted, including profuse

> nosebleeds, asthma and respiratory infections. s and

> Bullis also said they found lumps in their breasts, which

> they attributed to immune systems devastated by the mold.

> s blames mold for the death of one dog and

> neurological problems in another.

> s and other residents in the lawsuits filed some 30

> complaints with the city over conditions at the Overlook.

> s said as soon as her family was moved into a

> temporary unit while its unit was being remediated, the

> city complaint was dismissed.

> Once the family returned to the remediated apartment,

> s said, mold levels were even higher than before.

> Other residents not involved in the lawsuits complained

> also. One resident complained to the city's Neighborhood

> Resources Division in January and August 2005 about a

> leaking roof. Both times, repairs were ordered.

> In October 2005, a complex employee told the city nothing

> was fixed since the resident moved out.

> A city inspector told the employee that the apartment would

> have to be reinspected before it was rented again. City

> records don't indicate whether the reinspection was

> completed.

> Mold has become a hot-button topic in recent years. Many

> experts, including those from the U.S. Environmental

> Protection Agency, are studying a cluster of cases in

> Cleveland, where up to 27 infants developed lung ailments

> while living in flooded or water-damaged houses. Nine

> babies died.

> " Mold can affect health, but not in everyone, " said

> Kay O'Rourke, who teaches environmental health and related

> subjects at the University of Arizona's College of Public

> Health.

> " What happens is, some people respond (to mold), some

> people become hypersensitive and some not all, " said

> O'Rourke, who was not involved in either lawsuit.

> Innumerable species of mold are everywhere, O'Rourke said.

> Most people have immune systems healthy enough to resist

> any reaction.

> However, those who become sensitive to mold will never get

> rid of it, she said. " Certain types of mold are associated with

certain

> types of

> disease that are problematic, " she said.

> " But just because mold is in the house does not necessarily

> mean a person inhaled it or was exposed to it. A host of

> things have to happen in order to say that there's a direct

> relationship. "

> That's the crux of the stalemate in these lawsuits,

> according to court documents and hearings. The Hansens

> don't deny that the apartments were moldy, but that

> a " host " of conditions wasn't met to prove actual harm.

> Hyams said his evidence proves the conditions were met.

> , obviously, disagreed.

> Hyams tried to show that since the Hansens bought the

> complex in 1992, they chronically neglected maintenance,

> used improper techniques such as painting over mold to fix

> the problems and blamed low-income residents for failing to

> clean their apartments.

> " Mold infestation is almost always a symptom of poor

> maintenance, poor housekeeping or the two jointly, "

> O'Rourke said. " It doesn't occur overnight. " The only way

> to get rid of the mold is to cut off the water supply and

> remove the mold with a bleach solution or replace the

> affected area, she said.

> s and Bullis lived in apartments the complex said

> were " remediated, " but both said the mold remained and

> continued to harm their families.

> O'Rourke said she's often asked what residents should do if

> they live in homes with excessive mold.

> " You may think I'm callous, but I say, 'Move,' " O'Rourke

> said. " If you live in a sick building and you don't own it

> and can't control it, get the hell out of there.

> " If you own it, fix it. "

> In both lawsuits, plaintiffs were offered settlements. The

> first was for cash in various amounts that Bullis, s

> and s said didn't even begin to cover their

> expenses. The second was for nothing but an agreement that

> the Hansens wouldn't pursue costs of the case against them,

> which exceeds several hundred thousand dollars in the first

> lawsuit alone.

> A handful of families accepted a settlement. Bullis, s

> and s didn't.

> " It's not about what we can get out of it, " Bullis

> said. " Whatever we get is not going to replace what we

> lost.

> " But people live there now. They move in and they bring

> more young children. I don't ever want anyone to experience

> the loss my family has. As long as that place stands there,

> I'll fight. "

>

>

>

>

> ************************************** See what's new at

http://www.aol.com

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

That story is very sad and it makes me so grateful that my little

family left my moldy house before my newborn grandaughter got too

sick.

She started her life in that home of mine, although, none of us at

the time knew it was infested with mold. I had been sick for over 10

years and getting worse. My daughter had just had a beautiful little

girl (Sam) and she lived downstairs for the first 2 years of that

baby`s life with her and the baby`s father.

Throughout those first two years she was constanly getting high

fevors with no other symptoms and the doctors could not figure it

out. She was in and out of the hospital more times than I can count.

My daughter had developed some very odd gastrointestinal problems

that brought her in and out of the hospital for the last year that

we lived there.No know explanation there either...

As it turns out, I could no longer take care of the house my health

was failing fast so I put the house on the market. The prosepctive

buyers had a home inspector

who found the house had mold throughout it. I immediately began my

search for a doctor who would prescribe csm and I have since been

trying to get well.

The story goes on that as soon as my daughter and little Sam moved

out of that house. They immediately got better. The doctor who

prescribed the csm to me told me my granduaghter could die if she

hadn`t gotten out of there. Babies immune systems arent developed

enough to fight off the mold he said. I will never forget those

words.

To this day, she is 4 years old now, if she is anywher near mold she

develops a high fevor. Chances are she will live with this for the

rest of her life.

My daughter however has completely recovered.

I`am another story, since I have been exposed to mold probably for a

very long time as well as toxins and chemicals from breast implants

that use to be in this body... and the recovery goes on, hopefully,

one day I can start to feel better.

nne~

> >

> >

> > _http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/67141.php_

> > (http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/67141.php)

> > Published: 10.29.2007

> > Ex-tenants say mold caused ailments, death

> > Judge throws out lawsuits, fines attorney

> > A.J. FLICK

> > Tucson Citizen

> > The wall outside the bedroom where Ezekiel Mark Bullis

> > spent all five weeks of his brief life in 2001 still weeps

> > black mold.

>