Re: Re: cleared of mold with the fog.../ chg to lawsuits

[Guest guest]

Good advice, and I think you are correct with your analysis of the

situation. It's complex litigation. Very expensive both financially and

emotionally....and that is for those who " win " . So sad. Many people are

victimized by lack of proper addressing of the mold issue. Then they are

victimized

again by an abusive judicial process.

The problem being with mold cases is that they are very expensive to take to

trial. Unless you have a case where there is a lot of money in property

damages and some deep pockets to sue, most attorneys who have the skills and

expertise to take on mold cases will no longer do so on contingency.

Everything

changed in 2004 when case after case for personal injury with mold were

being

lost due to the ACOEM position paper. For this very reason defense stopped

settling out their cases because they knew their chances of winning were

excellent. With the conflict of interest now exposed that took place with

this

paper, more will be revealed as to how much this will affect these cases

over

the next few years.

In California lawsuits are fast tracked and forced to trial within a few

years. However, in other states this is not the case. I know people who are

going on their 6th and 7th year with their (mold) lawsuits and there does

not

seem to be any end in sight for them. In addition to many factors, each

person

needs to weigh whether they can emotionally afford to sue.

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

[Guest guest]

What holds them up for so long? The science is clearly there now. (and this

shoud have been acknowledged at least one or two years ago)

[Guest guest]

There must be a lot of plaintiffs who can't get representation, but

the situations in many of the cases are probably similar. Why can't

they set up some kind of fast track for the cases so they can get

money for decent medical care instead of spending months or years

dragging out the agony.

If the system isn't working, perhaps we need a new legal system that

DOES work to get people justice.

[Guest guest]

On 6/20/07, snk1955@... <snk1955@...> wrote:

>

> Good advice, and I think you are correct with your analysis of the

> situation. It's complex litigation. Very expensive both financially and

> emotionally....and that is for those who " win " . So sad. Many people are

> victimized by lack of proper addressing of the mold issue. Then they are

victimized

> again by an abusive judicial process.

>

It really is abusive in that this situation is not rocket science.

There seems to be a few

often seen patterns of how these things often play out that is not too

difficult to see.

There is a growing body of research that should be called on to

illustrate important points in

peoples cases and that should not require flying some expert in to say

'yes, mold does this' or " no, it doesn't do that " The facts (i.e. test

results, illnesses people have) should speak for themselves. That

creates an unreasonably high bar for plaintiffs because the actual

awards in some of these cases sometimes turns out to be a tiny

fraction of what the actual damages are for them.

The list of expenses for everybody varies, but for renters, it may be

years of lost wages and suddenly having a disability and lots of

medical issues that are going to make getting a normal job again very

hard. The biggest problem with having to work untraditionally for many

people then becomes an inability to get group rate health insurance

through a job.

Just lost wages and lost career track, ends up being a huge amount of money.

Even if you suddenly COULD work again, just paying the difference in

health insurance expenses if you have to be self employed which

stretch out into the future would be a HUGE amount of money .

And people would be naive not to think that they are going to have

problems getting re-employed, even if suddenly they could just jump

back into the workforce without any issues. It won't happen.

HR people see a big gap in your resume and they assume the worst. What

can you say? " I got sick for five years " ? Right..

For this reason, there needs to be a special court set up to expedite

these cases and get the victims help rapidly. The burden of proof

should not be on them to prove things over and over that have already

been proven in other courts. Expert testimony should be archived

centrally and used to address the questions that come up.

> The problem being with mold cases is that they are very expensive to take to

> trial. Unless you have a case where there is a lot of money in property

> damages and some deep pockets to sue, most attorneys who have the skills and

> expertise to take on mold cases will no longer do so on contingency.

>

>

>

> Everything

> changed in 2004 when case after case for personal injury with mold were

> being

> lost due to the ACOEM position paper. For this very reason defense stopped

> settling out their cases because they knew their chances of winning were

> excellent. With the conflict of interest now exposed that took place with

> this

> paper, more will be revealed as to how much this will affect these cases

> over

> the next few years.

>

> In California lawsuits are fast tracked and forced to trial within a few

> years. However, in other states this is not the case. I know people who are

> going on their 6th and 7th year with their (mold) lawsuits and there does

> not

> seem to be any end in sight for them. In addition to many factors, each

> person

> needs to weigh whether they can emotionally afford to sue.

>

>

>

>

>