Carol Finally Prevails

[Guest guest]

Here is the article on our case. We were instructed not to comment at this

time but will in the future. Hope it helps someone in a similiar situation.

Bob and Carol

Frederick News - December 16, 2000

County bad-air suit settled with worker -AP

Frederick County has settled an empoyee's claim that she was sickened by

bad air in a county building. The county's attorney refused to reveal how

much its insurer will pay Carol , who had sought workers'

compensation for lost wages and thousands of dollars in medical costs.

Ms. claimed she had missed more than 1 1\2 years of work

because

of the illness. Neither Ms. nor her attorney, Arthur C. Crum Jr.,

returned telephone calls on Friday from The Associated Press.

The agreement was finalized Tuesday, two days before the case was

scheduled to be heard in Frederick County Circuit Court. Ms. had

appealed to the court after the State Workers' Compensation Commission

rejected her claim last year.

Both sides agreed Ms. was sickened by excessive humidity and

mold spores in the Citizens Service Building. The county contended lifelong

respiratory problems had made Ms. unusually susceptible to those

conditions.

Under land's workers' compensation law, people with special

susceptibility to environmental conditions are not eligible for workers'

compensation benefits.

" This case was never really a workers' compensation case, " Jack Quinn, a

private attorney who represented Frederick County, said Friday.

" The county, after providing her with medical benefits through her

health

insurance and paying for the vast majority of her lost wages, decided to

enter into a settlement that would try to deal with her copays and wages

that

may not have been paid, " Mr. Quinn said.

Ms. said in 1999, before she returned to work, that she and her

husband, a public schoolteacher, were broke after paying about $25,000 in

out-of-pocket medical expenses. At the time, she was on sick leave at half

her normal wages. Winning the workers' compensation case would have

increased

her sick-leave to two-thirds of regular wages and covered her out-of-pocket

medical costs. Ms. , an employment counselor, claimed her extreme

reaction to the spores caused a three-week hospitalization in 1996 and

severely damaged her immune, neurological and muscular systems. Her illness

was diagnosed by doctors at Hopins University as aspergillis bronchial

pulmonary disease, according to the suit.

Three months after she fell ill, the county closed the building and

installed a dehumidifier to reduce mold spore readings that had been tested

at more that 10 times the level considered risky for people with mold

allergies or respiratory disease.