Aspies For Freedom

SoCal family wins record $22.6 million toxic mold settlement

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - A family won a record $22.6 million settlement in a case in which they alleged that toxic mold in their home caused brain damage in their infant son.

"$22.6 million, certainly in a single-family home (case), would be the largest in the country," said Raymond P. Boucher, president of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles.

The highest portion - $13 million - was paid by the Crenshaw Lumber Co. Inc. of Gardena, which was one of 17 defendants. The plaintiffs alleged that the company improperly stored framing studs, allowing mold to grow which then contaminated the home that was being built in Manhattan Beach.

Crenshaw Lumber settled on Oct. 19, the day after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge barred the wood supplier from using 10 of its 17 experts, including a toxicologist and microbiologist, said attorney Brian D. Witzer, who represented the Gorman family, who were the plaintiffs in the case.

Neither Crenshaw nor any of the other defendants admitted liability.

"We wish to emphasize that had the judge not excluded important expert witnesses from testifying ... we believe that the jury would have completely vindicated the company," Crenshaw said in a statement.

Barring the experts would have proved fatal to the defense, said Costa Mesa attorney Thomas S. Salinger, co-chair of Rutan & Tucker's construction law practice group.

"It's tantamount to not having a jury hear both sides of the story," he said.

The case is unusual not just for the settlement amount but also because contractors, not suppliers, are generally held responsible for construction defects, Salinger said.

Experts predicted the settlement will lead to more such cases.

The Gormans' son, Kellen, was born three months after they moved into their custom-built home in September 1999. They lived there for about two years.

Kellen, now 5, functions as a 1 1/2-year-old and needs 24-hour care, Witzer said. He blamed the boy's developmental problems on mold.

But Los Angeles attorney James D. Fraser, who defended a sheet metal company in the suit, said Kellen's doctors concluded he suffered from autism - a condition for which there is no known cause.

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Information from: Daily Journal

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluis...081638.htm

The article does not say who the expert witnesses are except that they were microbiologists and toxicologists.  

There are types of mould that are very toxic.  They can make people very sick.  I suppose if the little boy is getting headaches from the mould that is very bad.  It does not mean that the mould caused his autism.

In the case of moulds growing, some people are really stupid.  I was working for a company that manufactured cleaning supplies.  We were getting calls from school boards asking if the hospital type cleaners killed microorganisms that cause pneumonia, tuberculous, etc.  The parents were concerned about the health of their children.  I was asking why - were they going to wash the desks with this and expect that all those little kids crammed into a small classroom were not going to cough on each other.  I was told that they were using the hospital disinfectants to clean portable classrooms:  the walls and CARPETS.  I thought that was the most incredibly stupid thing to do.   The problem was mould not bacteria/virus!!!!  Of course marketing was not interested because that was not the customer was asking about.  And you can find some expert who will tell you that their cleaner will kill pneumoni cocci but not that disease is spread through coughing.  

Portable classrooms are notorious for their mould problems with some even sprouting like mushrooms along the woodwork.  I had stepped into one portable my brother was teaching out of and was almost grasping for breath.  Don't ask me how one teacher and 36 or more children can be packed into one of those nasty boxes for 5 or more hours per day.

Now the MMR thing is dead in the water, what's the betting that toxic mold will take its place?

With payouts of this size, the curebie establishment will find it a very attractive "cause" of autism.


Stella

coo, M,  I just googled "Toxic mold" and it seems to be the latest thing! There's lots of websites just about toxic mold, and toxic mold litigation.

Seems toxic mold is the new MMR...  

Stella

Existence of toxic mold syndrome questioned
By Will Boggs, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Mold and dampness can cause coughing and wheezing, but there is little evidence to support the existence of the so-called toxic mold syndrome, according to a report by researchers at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland.


Toxic mold syndrome -- illnesses caused specifically by exposure to mold -- continues to cause public concern despite a lack of evidence that supports its existence, researchers explain in the September issue of the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Several critical reviews have failed to find scientific support for toxic effects from breathing in mold spores as a viable mechanism of human disease, they add.

Dr. Barzin Khalili and Dr. Emil J. Bardana, Jr. describe the clinical characteristics of 50 patients with complaints of illness they attributed to mold exposure in their home or workplace. The patients had been referred by a defense attorney in a civil litigation or by insurance adjusters representing worker's compensation agencies.

There was no consistent set of symptoms, the authors report, with patients having an average of more than eight symptoms. Most patients reported a family or personal history of allergy or asthma.

Three quarters of the patients had abnormal physical examination results, the researchers note, with inflammation of the eye or skin and congestion occurring most commonly.

Thirty patients had other non-mold-related illnesses that could explain most, if not all, of their mold-related complaints, the report indicates, and nearly two thirds of the individuals had evidence of a previously diagnosed mood disorder.

"In fact," the investigators write, "when the entire history and objective evidence were scrutinized, a number of well-established and plausible diagnoses emerged that explained many, if not all, the complaints."

In a commentary in the journal, Dr. Abba I. Terr from UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco contends that toxic mold disease is "the latest in a series of environmentally related pseudo-illnesses" that include multiple chemical sensitivity, also known as idiopathic environmental intolerance, and chronic fatigue syndrome, which was attributed at one time to infection with Epstein-Barr virus.

"Since these authors have determined that the patients they describe do not have a mold-related disease but are nevertheless seeking compensation for presumed illness through a legal process that has defined it in those terms, toxic mold disease is truly a diagnosis of litigation," Terr concludes.

SOURCE: Annals of Allergy Asthma and Immunology, September 2005.

One question - does toxic mold grow on mercury? :roll:

dark places that have black or dark mould growing on the walls -  I can not enter the room --  I get an asthma attack.   I am allergic to mould.    There must be a high concentration of mould spores in the air to produce that reaction.  Being exposed to low levels of allergens still can adversely affect a sensitive person.  

the black or green, yellow, orange colour of the mould is due to the spores.  The spore producing bodies are the "flowers" of the fungi to deseminate the reproductive "seeds" of the fungi.  The mould is only a small portion of what is the fungal colony.  The body of the colony, the mycelium grows deeply through the media: walls, wood, soil.  Fungi live by secreting their digestive enzymes into the media to break it down.  Usually people are allergic to proteins: enzymes.  I am not sure whether I am allergic to proteins in the mould spores or just in the mycelium or what is excreted into the fungi media.

However, I do not believe that allergies to fungi cause autism.  Allergic symptoms such as cough, wheezing, itchiness, nose bleeds can only make someone with autism more cranky.  It makes anyone more cranky.  

I do not need some "expert" to tell me I am not allergic to mould and that it does not make me sick.   So no one better be diagnosed with a "mood disorder" or no doctor will take their pain and physical ailments seriously.