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Background: Lawrence Tower, a dormitory building at Ohio State University (screengrab via WBNS). Inset: A mushroom allegedly growing out of the wall inside the dorm building (courtesy plaintiff’s complaint).
The parents of more than 30 college freshmen at Ohio State University have sued the school for what they say are dangerous conditions in one of the school’s dorms.
According to the complaint, the building, Lawrence Tower, is a “toxic time bomb” that is making student residents sick due to mold.
Per the filing, parents who paid a premium for upgraded accommodations in Lawrence Tower found that shortly after move-in day, their children began to experience coughs, brain fog, and respiratory symptoms. The building had been a Holiday Inn Express hotel that was purchased by the school and turned into a dormitory in 2009. It has over 130 rooms, each of which houses one to four students.
Residents paid $5,045 per semester to live in Lawrence Tower — more than $1,000 more than the corresponding rate at other dorms.
“University officials knew the renovations should have taken two years, but were inexplicably completed in only two months,” said the filing, which alleged that mold and asbestos issues were rampant on the property.
“Mushrooms began growing out of Lawrence Tower walls,” said the plaintiffs, whose complaint included pictures. They asserted that students began to notice that wallpaper separated from the walls to reveal black, yellow, and purple mold.
Images of mold behind a wall and on an HVAC unit allegedly in an Ohio State University dorm building (courtesy plaintiff’s complaint).
Plaintiffs said that when the conditions were brought to the attention of university officials, they were told that the problem was the result of a singular leak. However, parents had their own mold testing done and say that the tests found that most rooms had air quality issues.
The university declined to comment on pending litigation, but referred Law&Crime to a statement posted in late November. In the statement, the university said that it was conducting air-quality testing at Lawrence Tower and that early review indicates that most rooms are “within the expected range” for air quality, but that “out of an abundance of caution,” it has engaged a mold remediation expert.
Students have been removed from the Lawrence Tower dorms during the spring semester, according to the university to “minimize further disruptions to their student experience and facilitate ongoing renovations.”
“The university takes environmental health and safety seriously and has comprehensive safety and service protocols for its more than 1,300 buildings, including residence halls,” said the university in the statement. “These robust systems include multiple channels for reporting and responding to health and safety concerns, as well as standard processes for communicating about maintenance and upkeep to building occupants and engaging outside experts to assist with this work when needed.”
The complaint asks for unspecified damages in the amount of no less than $6,000 per plaintiff.
“They don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Jedidiah Bressman. “This is hopefully a once in lifetime thing that Ohio State will have to deal with and then they will fix the issue and everything will be fine.”
You can read the full complaint here.