A New Jersey Superior Court Judge dismissed plaintiffs’ bodily injury suits arising out of alleged exposure to mold including penicillium and aspergillus in an office building in Trenton. Judge Innes excluded plaintiffs’ causation experts, Dr. Stanley Lane, Dr. Max Burger, Dr. Angelo Mastrosimone and Dr. Kevin Law under the Net Opinion Rule and entered summary judgment dismissing six plaintiffs’ claims in the matter of Anderson v. Capital Center, et al., Docket No. MER-L-244-03.
Plaintiffs were employees of a tenant in an office building located in Trenton, New Jersey. Following the discovery of mold in the building, one of the plaintiffs died as a result of their alleged exposure. The plaintiff was noted to have pansinusitis which was alleged to have been the result of an allergic reaction to ongoing mold exposure. Experts testified that plaintiff’s cardiopulmonary arrest in February of 2002 occurred after she returned to work due to toxic mold in the building.
The presence of aspergillus and penicillium as well as a variety of other molds was confirmed by air testing of the office space. However, the plaintiff never underwent skin testing to determine whether she was allergic to mold. Plaintiff’s expert opined that if she had been skin tested, she would have been found to be allergic to mold. Defendant sought to bar Dr. Law’s opinion as inadmissible, as plaintiff’s expert failed to show a valid and scientific, reliable factual basis for his underlying opinion. The motion was based upon the opinions expressed by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Rubanick v. Witco Chemical, 242 N.J. Super. 336, (App. Div. 1990) mod. o.g., 125 N.J. 421 (1991) and in accordance with the holdings of the United States Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrill-Dow Pharmaceutical, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 278 (1993). Defendant successfully argued that there was no causational link between plaintiff’s death and her exposure to any mold found in the office space in question. In dismissing plaintiff’s complaint, the court relied upon the unpublished Federal Court opinion of Sanders v. Rosenberg, 2008 W.L. 1732980, which held that the plaintiff must prove that the plaintiff is allergic to the particular mold found in the defendant’s premises. The court held that Dr. Law’s opinions were not sufficiently founded upon a valid and reliable factual basis or scientific basis to warrant consideration by a jury. As a result, the court entered summary judgment in favor of the defendant, dismissing the plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice.
Both Jeffrey B. Beacham, Esq. and Marvin Blakely, Esq. of our Florham Park, New Jersey office represented the building owners in this case. |
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