National Law Journal:Condition Critical:Long-neglected courthouses health hazard

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©2006 National Law Journal Online

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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.