HONOLULU -- The problem of mold at the Hilton Hawaiian Village has resurfaced again -- this time in a class-action lawsuit.
 
Guests who stayed at its Kalia Tower during the time a mold problem was discovered filed the lawsuit against the hotel.
 
When mold was found in hotel rooms in the Kalia Tower at the Hilton Hawaiian Village two years ago, the tower was nearly gutted and the mold cleaned up at a cost of $55 million.
 
Circuit Court Judge Sabrina McKenna Thursday certified a class-action lawsuit filed by guests who stayed at the hotel between June 14 and July 23, 2002, who want their money back on the rooms for which they paid.
 
The issue here is one of disclosure. The attorneys filing this lawsuit said the Hilton should have told guests it had found mold in some of the rooms at the Kalia Tower in June and July of 2002.
 
"Any guest that stayed at the hotel should have been told about that mold problem to either get an opportunity to stay in another tower or to make a decision for themselves whether they did want to stay in the Kalia Tower," attorney Tom Grande said.
 
Attorneys for the Hilton said they were told the mold was relatively harmless and experts believed the hotel caught the problem early. Lawyers said the varying amounts of mold found in the hotel rooms at the beginning would make it difficult to fight a class-action suit.
 
"What should Hilton have said, if anything?" Hilton attorney Trevor Brown asked McKenna in court. "It's not a document that says the same thing to everybody or is the same condition. It's not a pill that has the same chemicals."
 
"The problem I see here is that it appears that a lot of people weren't given the choice," McKenna said.
 
Attorneys said there may be about 2,000 people included in the lawsuit and it will be up to a jury to decide how much each guest would receive in compensation. It may be a year before the case goes to trial.
 
The mold that shut down the 453-room tower is called erotium, a common form of mildew found in Hawaii. The hotel believes the mold was caused by high humidity in the rooms.
 
The cleanup took a little more than a year.
 
Hilton has sued the tower's architect and contractors in a separate lawsuit.
 
The class-action lawsuit against Hilton does not include claims of personal injury due to the mold problem.
 

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