Couple awarded damages for mold in basement

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A Pittsford couple fought a pitched and protracted battle against the mold in their home, and almost lost.

Dr. Neil and Patti Goldstein did, however, win a lawsuit against their builder because infested floor joists made them sick with upper-respiratory problems and because they endured an 18-month remediation process trying to get rid of the mold.

A Monroe County Supreme Court jury on Monday awarded $187,000 to the Goldsteins for pain and suffering damages and for property loss and the cost of remediation.

The Goldsteins’ attorney, Steven G. Schwarz, of Faraci Lange LLP, said, in addition to Pittsford homebuilders Spall Realty Corp. and Brookwood Building Corp., Washington, D.C.-based wood products manufacturer Weyerhauser was named in the suit. Schwarz said Spall Realty is a nonexistent builder that constructs homes through shell companies, including Brookwood. The Goldsteins first sued Brookwood, but it was discovered during pretrial that Brookwood had no employees.

Schwarz said Spall’s owner, Ted Spall Jr., “is a very slippery character” and that the public should be aware the builder testified at trial that he has a dozen or more homebuilding corporations but that none of them have employees. The website for Spall Homes states that the corporation continues to build the homes, but Schwarz said the builder admitted in court that the firm has not existed since 1989. In that year, Spall Homes was merged into Spall Realty, a name Schwarz said is used to attract buyers before switching to one of the shell corporations when a contract is signed.

The Goldsteins claimed negligence against Spall and Brookwood for a number of construction defects, Schwarz said, but the jury did not find that the joists on which most of the mold grew were defective at the time they left the manufacturer.

Background

The Weyerhauser joists — known by the trade name TJI (Trus Joist I-beam) — look like a wooden I-beam and are not all-solid wood like, for example, a traditional 2-by-10-inch joist. The centerpiece is made of what’s known as OSB — a kind of particle board — while the beams’ top and bottom are made of solid or a veneered wood.

Floor joists perhaps are the most critical structural part of a house as they support much of its weight. Schwarz said the construction defects involved poor drainage and a concrete basement floor that was poured without ventilation. In addition to producing mold, a wet or humid basement also can warp wooden joists.

The plaintiffs’ experts testified that because one particularly hazardous mold species was found both inside and outside of the joists — and also inside other TJI joists tested from other sources — it must have been inside since the time of manufacture. Schwarz said the jury did not find sufficient proof to determine precisely when the mold entered the product and found in Weyerhaeuser’s favor.

The problem was, Schwarz said, “we had no evidence of where the material was manufactured.” 

Weyerhauser manufactures TJI joists in three different locations, company spokesman Bruce Admunsen said, adding that the product does not have a history of mold infestation. This particular type of joist has been on the market for 35 years, he said.

“This is now really an industry standard for joists,” Admunson said. “The high heat used in the process would have killed any mold, but the main thing is that the jury found that our product was not defective.”
Remediation

The Goldsteins bought their home in Pittsford’s Settlers Green subdivision in 2004 and used two basement dehumidifiers to battle the moldy conditions. The actual remediation took multiple steps. Schwarz said that during the first round, the joists were vacuumed, then were sandblasted with dry ice. In step three, an antimicrobial agent was applied to the joists and, later, they were coated with a protective sealant.

The Goldsteins and Spall could not be reached for comment, but in a release from Faraci Lange, Patti Goldstein said she was glad the long fight with Spall was over.

“It will be great to get on with our lives and put this horrible experience behind us. We only hope that other people who are contemplating building with Spall and any of his shell corporations will learn from our misery,” she said.