Re: National Law Journal:Condition Critical:Long-neglected co...

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©2006 National Law Journal Online

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Here is the article below.

Mulvey son

National Law Journal

Condition Critical

Geier/Staff reporter

October 4, 2006

Many local courthouses across the nation are unsafe and overcrowded,

and people working in them allege that long-neglected facilities are

making them sick with everything from respiratory problems to cancer.

Flaking asbestos, peeling paint, black mold, a lack of ventilation

and violations of modern building and fire codes are among the

hazards, according to courthouse personnel, as well as legal actions

and workers' compensation claims filed in several jurisdictions from

Boston to Los Angeles.

" For a number of years and for a variety of reasons, state and local

court budgets have been on a roller coaster, " said M. Linskey,

executive director of the State Justice Institute in andria, Va.,

established to award grants to improve the quality of justice in

state courts.

" The first thing to go in uncertain times is general maintenance and

repair of buildings, " Linskey said. " Budgeters have been forced to

skimp on the upkeep of courthouses . . . to meet payroll and keep the

doors open. It's a problem, and it is going to get bigger. "

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

processed 99 requests for health hazard evaluations of courthouses

around the country over the past two decades-nearly one third of

which were received in the last five years.

All but one of the 30 requests since 2001 claimed that poor indoor

air quality, ventilation and mold issues were causing allergic

symptoms, a range of respiratory problems and cancers.

The 30 requests originated from courthouses in 16 states and the

District of Columbia, including Philadelphia City Traffic Court;

Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach; New York

state Supreme and Surrogate's courts in Jamaica, Queens County; and

Arkansas Court of Appeals in Little Rock.

Problems exist in courthouses where maintenance budgets have not kept

pace with the ravages of time and local conditions such as humidity

and earthquakes. Even many newer facilities have been found to

contain black mold, court administrators note.

The problems are magnified in jurisdictions where tightening budgets

have meant deferred maintenance-particularly where county and local

governments own courthouses occupied by state judicial employees.

'Quite deplorable'

Chief Justice M. of the California Supreme Court, who

has made good on a pledge to visit all 451 county-owned courthouses

in California's 58 counties when he became chief justice in 1996,

said that the conditions he found were " quite deplorable in many

instances. "

The variety of health, safety and security issues made the courts

eager for the Legislature to transfer control of court facilities to

direct state judicial branch management after the state took over the

courts in 2000, said.

The California Legislature is trying to resolve liability issues that

have held up the facility transfer, particularly a requirement that

the counties bring the buildings up to snuff before transferring them

to the state. New legislation would require the counties to retain

liability for the buildings for only a prescribed period of time,

said.

Unhealthy courthouses can affect everyone who uses the facilities,

including judges, jurors and trial lawyers.

Headaches, nausea, dizziness, serious respiratory problems, cancers

and mesothelioma from asbestos are among the ailments that people

claim they have contracted from poorly maintained courthouses.

A. Drake, chief of the family violence division in the

Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office in the Clarence M.

Jr. Courthouse, believes the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that she was

treated for six years ago was caused by working in a courthouse with

serious environmental problems.

" I really feel that to some extent you take you life and health in

your own hands when you take a job in this courthouse, " Drake said.

Drake suspects poor ventilation, mold and pigeon droppings-sometimes

a foot deep outside her window-may have contributed to her illness.

Marilynne of & Faenza in Walpole, Mass., a divorce lawyer

and one of three attorney plaintiffs in a Massachusetts case over

courthouse conditions, said that she regularly spent from one to five

days a week in Norfolk Probate and Family Court in Dedham, Mass.,

before a court ordered it closed.

The unhealthy conditions in the courthouse " created an atmosphere

that was devoid of any dignity or professionalism, both for lawyers

and for clients going through litigation, also of being unsafe, "

said. She added that the morale of court personnel and judges was

clearly affected by having to work full time in that building.

Chang-Ming Yeh, a Denver-based judicial facility planner with the

National Center for State Courts in burg, Va., said

that " sick building syndrome " frequently comes up when considering

new courthouse construction or renovation, but that the center has

not kept statistical data on the issue in courthouses or complaints

received.

A local list of horrors

So far, most action on the issue has stayed local. Among other

problem hot spots:

The 102-year-old Mercer County Criminal Courthouse and its annex in

Trenton, N.J., were closed for a day last month after an independent

title searcher working in the county clerk's office was diagnosed

with suspected Legionnaires' disease, a type of pneumonia caused by

waterborne bacteria.

Though the disease could not be traced to the courthouse, the

incident highlighted existing chronic air quality, mold and health

issues stemming from the aging building, leaking roofs and deferred

maintenance, said Daly, spokesman for Mercer County Executive

M. .

Elbert County Courthouse in Kiowa, Colo., is only 21 years old, but

it has been closed for most of the last two years due to health

concerns related to persistent mold problems caused by a leaky roof

and unsealed foundation, said L. Salaz, spokeswoman for the

state judiciary.

Los Angeles court officials invited the local news media to watch a

Los Angeles judge conduct her docket on the steps of the Central

Civil West Courthouse last August after the facility's antiquated

electrical system melted down-just one of 49 Los Angeles County

courthouses that have issues ranging from asbestos to zootoxins.

Union activists in Baltimore, alarmed by accumulations of pigeon

droppings-the same ones referred to by Drake-on the city's circuit

courthouses, as well as blackened office air vents and high

incidences of respiratory ailments, campaigned successfully to get

the city's courthouses cleaned. They continue to agitate for regular

maintenance and personnel testing.

A lawsuit in Massachusetts on behalf of 58 courthouse employees and

three lawyers-the suit joined by -resulted in a court order

closing the Norfolk Probate and Family Court in Dedham in 2002.

Schmidt v. Norfolk County, No. 02-00614 (Norfolk Co., Mass., Super.

Ct.).

A 'line in the sand'

An action over asbestos remediation in the J. Sullivan

Courthouse in Cambridge, Mass., is pending before a single justice of

commonwealth's Supreme Judicial Court in Boston. Sullivan v. Chief

Justice of Administration and Management, No. SJ-2006-0176 (SJC for

Suffolk Co., Mass.).

Plaintiffs in that lawsuit include Middlesex County's clerk of the

court and prosecutor, as well as the Massachusetts Academy of Trial

Lawyers and at least 200 court employees. The NIOSH is still

conducting an inquiry involving the Sullivan courthouse.

Martha Coakley, Middlesex County district attorney and a candidate

for commonwealth attorney general whose office is in the Sullivan

Courthouse, said it became clear that nothing was going to happen

until someone filed suit.

" The government kept taking its time to do an assessment, " Coakley

said, adding that the plaintiffs " drew the line in the sand " when the

court administration said it was going to do asbestos abatement with

people in the building.

Coakley pointed out that her predecessor's chronic bronchitis went

away after he stopped working in the courthouse.

A. Milne, of the Milne Law Offices in Dover, Mass., who

represents the plaintiffs pro bono in both Massachusetts cases, noted

that if " this is what we value most as a society, this justice system

that makes our country great, then there's a deep-rooted problem in

that there isn't the political will or whatever it takes to invest in

adequate facilities. "

A. Mulligan, chief justice for administration and management

for Massachusetts' Administrative Office of the Trial Court, the

judicial official responsible for the maintenance of the

commonwealth's 110 court facilities, declined to discuss pending

litigation.

But Mulligan said that six new courthouses, beginning with a $180

million, 26-courtroom full service facility in Worcester, underscore

the commonwealth's commitment to courthouse construction.

Massachusetts is " a small state committed to building courthouses

accessible to everyone and committed to providing a safe and secure

environment to its 7,400 courthouse employees and others who use the

buildings, " Mulligan said.

M. Zielinski of Goulston & Storrs of Boston, who represents

Mulligan in the litigation, noted: " You can't do everything you want

to do when you want to do it. We're focusing on the problem and doing

what we can. "

Asbestos in L.A.

Los Angeles County's earthquakes ensure that it does not have

centenarian courthouses, but workers in the large county court system

have health-related complaints similar to their eastern counterparts.

Allan Parachini, public information officer for the Los Angeles

Superior Court, said that many of the county's courthouses have

asbestos issues because they were built in the 1950s and 1960s. In

addition, their electrical systems weren't designed to bear the heavy

burden of today's computing and electronic demands.

" Long Beach Courthouse is the poster child because it presents all of

the difficulties that we have all in one place, " Parachini said.

Part of Long Beach Courthouse was built in the 1950s and part was

built in the 1960s, and the two parts were not properly attached. The

building has rats, insects and asbestos issues, and its elevators and

escalators, inoperable for several years, recently were put back in

operation but still aren't all working properly, he said.

The building, considered an " extreme seismic risk, " is undergoing a

$16 million seismic reinforcement work " to keep it standing long

enough for people to get out in the event of an earthquake, "

Parachini said.

Bats in Baltimore

In Baltimore, union activism helped to goad officials into cleaning

up its two allegedly sick courthouse buildings, one built in 1900 and

the other in the 1930s.

In addition to rodents, bats and insect infestations, workers claimed

that the buildings caused a variety of respiratory problems,

unexplained rashes and even several cases-one fatal-of non-Hodgkins

lymphoma.

The union has fought with city and court officials over issues such

as air quality testing, but rather than file a lawsuit, it has begun

to build a record by sending sick members to the state's workers'

compensation commission. It won its first case in April and has three

or four more cases pending, according to Arthur " Pat " ,

president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal

Employees Local 3674 and a Baltimore city circuit courtroom clerk.

The union's pressure and a wider realization that people in other

departments-judges, prosecutors and sheriff's deputies-have developed

the same health problems as clerks, led the court and city officials

to resolve that Baltimore needs a new criminal courthouse and the

complete renovation of its existing buildings.

But as in other jurisdictions, the hard part is determining who is

responsible for finding the money: the state that pays the clerks'

and judges' salaries, or the city that owns and maintains the

buildings.