Articles Posted in Chinese Drywall

A recent news piece reveals that Chinese drywall may have gotten as far as Las Vegas when it was imported and installed into new homes nationwide. Homeowners have cited the now standard signs of it having been used for the development of their dwellings and inspectors have begun investigating

A Chinese drywall class action lawsuit has been filed in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to the Las Vegas Sun, the lawsuit alleges that Chinese drywall is causing health problems for occupants of homes in two Las Vegas neighborhoods

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four homeowners, the Sun said. Three of the homes are located in a neighborhood near Jones Boulevard and Grand Teton Drive; and the fourth is near Hollywood Boulevard and Desert Inn Road. The lawsuit, which seeks class action status for all residents of the state suffering health problems because of Chinese drywall, names subsidiaries of Miami-based homebuilder Lennar Corp. and drywall manufacturer Georgia-Pacific Corp. of Atlanta as defendants.

While many members of the state and federal government have been discussing tax rebates for those who have Chinese drywall in their homes, it is not an open and shut situation for those wishing to make claims. Instead, it can be a long and tedious uphill battle with mixed results. WPBF of Florida recently featured a couple facing this challenge

Larry Kosakowski and his fiancée, Kelly Wonderlick, can fill their living room table with their Chinese drywall battle. They’ve already found that the imported wall boards corroded electrical wiring and ate up appliances. The telltale Knauf stamp can be seen all over the attic.

“The value of the property is important to us,” said Kosakowski. “It’s your biggest investment.”

Tests have confirmed that while the faulty Chinese wallboard may be toxic and harmful to the health of those people whose homes are lined with the stuff, Chinese drywall is not radioactive. As a precaution, the government carried out tests to insure that the material is not even more dangerous than it already is and the tests came back negative.

The Herald Tribune reports

Tainted Chinese drywall is known to smell and corrode metal, and is suspected of making people sick. But state and federal investigators have determined one thing the wallboard is not: radioactive.

In brief, from the Palm Beach Post:

Florida Atlantic University’s School of Architecture plans to begin offering training classes for workers and supervisors who are going to be removing Chinese drywall from homes.

According to a flyer by the school, two courses – a one-day worker safety awareness class, and a supplemental two-day supervisor and worker safety awareness training – are currently being developed.

The Wall Street Journal reports that government officials will be visiting China to investigate drywall manufacturing sites to better understand the problem occurring in homes across the United States. The report states

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission officials have received approval to visit several sites in China later this month to investigate problems with imported drywall that was manufactured there, the agency said today.

Agency officials also have started indoor air sampling in 50 homes and visited a synthetic drywall manufacturing plant in Florida as part of their investigation, the agency said in a status update report posted on its Web site. Chinese officials earlier accompanied U.S. officials in visits to some affected homes in Florida and Louisiana.

It looks like the MDL proceedings dealing with Chinese drywall will be moving along quite quickly, or is at least planned to be according to the judge in charge. Meeting with attorneys, with attorney Jeffrey Berniard in attendance, Judge Fallon notified both sides that the litigation would be moving forward and that he hoped to even have cases beginning just after the new year.

The Herald Tribune reports

Judge Eldon E. Fallon, who plans to begin “bellwether” trials in January, told both sides during a status conference in New Orleans on Tuesday that he expected discovery to begin in a few weeks.

Perhaps one of the saddest recent stories coming out of the Chinese drywall disaster is the following, where the poor and elderly have been kicked out of their homes as a result of the buildings being built with the faulty wallboard. The News Inferno reports

Dozens of low-income elderly people are being evicted from a Florida apartment complex because of Chinese drywall and mold. According to naplesnews.com, the 33 residents have been given until the end of this month to leave the 30-unit Bromelia Place apartment building in Immokalee.

Many of the residents have been complaining of respiratory ailments. Other problems reported may be related to potentially-defective Chinese drywall, naplesnews.com said. The complex was only opened in 2007.

Beginning with the unfortunately typical story of a family looking for a new home to raise their family, the Wall Street Journal’s poignant piece on the uphill battle faced by families dealing with Chinese drywall brings more attention to the unfortunate situation. The piece opens

Shortly after buying their home in Cape Coral, Fla., in 2006, Keith and Denise Cramer noticed a peculiar acidic smell they thought was wet paint. The odor never left.

There were other strange occurrences. Chrome-plated faucets and showerheads became pitted or turned black. The central air-conditioning unit faltered and failed. Their baby son, Gavin, suffered frequent ear and upper respiratory infections, and Gavin and Denise got rashes.

The MDL has decided on the steering committees for the Chinese drywall lawsuit and while they did not include the Berniard Law Firm, our firm is in a key position to be highly involved as pretrial motions go on in the city of New Orleans. U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon appointed 14 different attorneys from across the country to deal with the defective sheetrock and pretrial motions will be handled in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Judge Fallon will coordinate pretrial litigation and discovery, and, upon completion, all filings will return to their original jurisdictions for trial.

For more information about the MDL or Chinese drywall, please consult the section of our blog dedicated to this serious topic by clicking here.