Wave Of Meth Lab Home Contamination Litigation On The Horizon?

The National Law Journal (appearing on law.com) reports:

• First it was toxic mold. Now it's meth residue. Property owners are battling a new breed of lawsuits, in which people who unwittingly bought homes that were once methamphetamine labs are suing over contaminated houses that are making them sick. The lawsuits are fallout from the massive federal crackdown on meth labs during the past decade, which saw more than 100,000 labs busted, leaving behind thousands of polluted homes and apartments for unsuspecting residents to fill.

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• In Ohio, a single mother is suing the former owner of a drug house that she unknowingly bought [...]. Her children developed chronic respiratory problems, forcing her to vacate the house, lose most of her personal belongings and face foreclosure.

• In Washington state, a real estate company and property owners are currently appealing a court ruling that awarded $94,000 to a family that unknowingly bought a house that was a former meth lab. The family was forced to move and lost its personal belongings to contamination.

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• Ohio attorney Warner Mendenhall, who is representing the single mother in the Ohio lawsuit, believes that a wave of meth contamination litigation is on the horizon. "In the city of Akron alone, there are hundreds of houses, apartments and hotel rooms that have been used as meth production labs, and I think there are tremendous dangers there," said Mendenhall of Akron, Ohio's The Law Offices of Warner Mendenhall.

For more, see Meth Lab Residue in Homes Triggers Litigation (Lawsuits over contaminated homes focus on failure to disclose issue) (requires subscription; if no subscription TRY HERE).

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