Claimants cite variety of illnesses they link to N Street building.
By Mary Lynne Vellinga - sacbee.com
Published 12:26 am PST Thursday, February 28, 2008
Nearly two dozen employees of the state Board of Equalization have sued the tax agency and its director for allegedly concealing health-threatening mold growth in its N Street headquarters.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Sacramento Superior Court, 23 present and former BOE employees allege they have suffered a variety of ill health effects – including respiratory problems, flulike symptoms, headaches, rashes and fatigue – because of exposure to mold in the building.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for medical expenses, lost earnings, pain and suffering.
"We're seeking significant damages for these individuals for the (mold) exposure and the injuries and diseases it has caused," attorney Anthony Perez said Wednesday.
The lawsuit also names as a defendant the state Department of General Services, which owns the building and leases it to the Board of Equalization.
BOE spokeswoman Anita Gore said Wednesday the agency had not yet reviewed the lawsuit. "Nobody at headquarters has seen it, and we wouldn't talk about litigation anyway," Gore said. DGS spokeswoman Beth Mills also declined to comment.
About 2,200 people work in the 24-story BOE headquarters at 450 N St. Opened in 1993, the building is a wall of more than 6,000 windows set in precast concrete.
Between 1999 and 2005, seven large panes of window glass failed, some sending shards of glass crashing to the street. A state report blamed window gasket failure, which caused the windows to fail and water to leak into the building.
The state recently spent $12 million to fix the windows and make the building watertight.
In October, the agency vacated employees from the top three floors of the building after it discovered "a variety of molds" growing in the walls. The mold included Stachybotrys chartarum, the "black mold" that has been the subject of numerous legal claims and reports of illness.
Just before that announcement, the agency was hit with the first of a wave of tort claims from employees – the precursor to this week's court action.
General Services has since begun efforts to rid the three top floors of mold. The BOE also has brought in its own consultants to do indoor air-quality testing.
The employee lawsuit alleges that BOE Director Ramon J. Hirsig was long aware of the existence of mold in the building, but did little until the first tort claims were filed. In fact, the lawsuit alleges, he repeatedly told employees not to worry.
Among other evidence, the lawsuit quotes a sworn declaration from BOE senior tax counsel Steve Ryan, who said that in late 2006 he showed Hirsig numerous stains on the 22nd floor that he believed were caused by mold growth.
Earlier, when Ryan informed a supervisor of the problem, he was told, "We don't use the M word around here," the lawsuit alleges.
The employee lawsuit also quotes a Feb. 1 letter from Hygiene Technologies International Inc. – a consultant hired by the BOE to evaluate the building's safety – suggesting General Services department continues to mishandle the mold problem.
In late January, after a 10th-floor break room was accidentally flooded by an overflowing sink, the agency opened up the wall and turned on fans to dry it out. This allowed mold spores to enter the building's HVAC system, according to the Hygiene Technologies report. A Jan. 29 air quality test in the break room found an elevated concentration of mold spores.
The report suggested that "a labor force that was unaware of proper abatement procedures" could be to blame.
A DGS consultant responded with a letter disputing the idea that the mold spores could have been dispersed throughout the building, saying the HVAC filters would have removed them.
Science hasn't established a direct link between mold and specific illnesses. Sandy McNeel, a research scientist with the state Department of Public Health, recently told The Bee that molds produce indooor allergens that cause reactions in some people.
Bacteria also grow faster in wet environments, as do dust mites, she said.

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