Boca Raton Personal Injury Lawyers Blog | Ellis, Ged, & Bodden, P.A.

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.

Defendants named in the suit claim that they did not use Chinese drywall in Las Vegas homes, and the Sun notes that domestic wallboard is made in the Las Vegas area. However, Georgia Pacific has been named in a Florida lawsuit that alleges its American-made synthetic drywall products are also causing corrosion in home components and health problems. The suit alleges that those products emit sulfur, methane and other volatile organic chemical compounds, the Sun said.

As we’ve reported previously, Lennar has acknowledged that Chinese drywall was used in about 400 of its Florida homes. The company has filed its own lawsuit against the makers and distributors of Chinese drywall.

Consumers in 24 states have filed a total of 1046 Chinese drywall complaints with the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC). Gases emitted from the drywall are being blamed for significant property damage, including damage to HVAC systems, smoke detectors, electrical wiring, metal plumbing components, and other household appliances. These gases also produce a sulfurous odor, similar to fireworks or rotten eggs, that permeates homes, and cause metals, including air conditioning coils and even jewelry, to corrode.

Earlier this summer, tests conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that Chinese-manufactured drywall contained elevated levels of strontium sulfide, as well as the presence of several organic compounds associated with the production of acrylic paint that were not present in samples of U.S.-made drywall. The Florida health department is expected to release further test results that could shed more light on potential health hazards posed by the drywall in September. The EPA and other government agencies are also conducting additional health testing, and those results should also be available soon.

Chinese Drywall Imported to Guam, Saipan, American Samoa
Potentially defective Chinese drywall was imported to Guam, Saipan and American Samoa. According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), more than 20,000 sheets of Chinese-made drywall made their way on to those islands in 2006. View entire article

Coral Gables builder guts his own bad drywall-plagued home
Across South Florida and the country, distraught homeowners feel stuck in their stinky, corroding homes that are breaking down bit by bit from something leaching from defective Chinese drywall. View entire article

Fort Myers drywall victim sick of wait
The owner of a $1.4 million Fort Myers home with defective Chinese drywall wants to know why his builder, Aubuchon Homes, won't fix it. Dr. Keith Baker, who moved his family out of the home Dec. 17, said State Rep. Gary Aubuchon, who is also president of Aubuchon Homes, did pay four months rent on an alternate residence and some expenses. But Aubuchon then cut off further assistance, Baker said. View entire article

Wall Street Journal: Lennar Confirms Bad Drywall in Homes
Lennar Corp. has identified 400 homes in Florida that have confirmed problems with defective Chinese drywall, and it has set aside $39.8 million to repair the homes, the Miami-based home builder said in a securities filing Friday. View entire Article

New Chinese drywall developments won't help some victims in SWFL
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA - More people living in homes built with Chinese drywall are speaking only to WINK News. They say it's ruining their life and new developments this week aren't helping their problem. View entire article

New Orleans federal district court judge Eldon Fallon knows how to manage mass torts. He's the judge, after all, who oversaw the $4.85 billion settlement of Vioxx claims against Merck in 2007. So we were quite intrigued to see this story in the Miami Daily Business Review, outlining Fallon's plan for the 600-case multidistrict litigation involving allegedly sulfur-emitting Chinese-made drywall.

Fallon intends to begin trying bellwether cases before the end of the year, according to the Daily Business Review. Working with members of the defense and plaintiffs steering committees, he will pick five representative cases to test plaintiffs claims that the drywall in their houses is defective."

Fast-tracking is an understatement. It's a rocket docket. And he means business," plaintiffs steering committee member Ervin Gonzalez of Colson Hicks Eidson told the DBR. "He wants the first case tried by the end of the year, and he wants an inspection of every home. He wants to be able to get to the bottom of the problem."

Plaintiffs' lawyers told the DBR that Fallon's fast track to trial will encourage homeowners to consider settling their cases, but one of the lead drywall defendants, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin said Fallon's inspection order and a requirement that all claimants fill out fact sheets "will substantially narrow the scope of the litigation and finally put to rest the speculation as to the number of homes that are impacted by Chinese drywall."

If you or a loved one is a victim of an injury caused by a defective and unreasonably dangerous product, contact the law offices of Ellis, Ged & Bodden now. The legal team at Ellis, Ged & Bodden have the experience and resources to both preserve and pursue your claim and will work to recover fair and reasonable compensation for your injuries. The law provides a limited time period during which you have the right to bring a defective product or product liability claim. So act now to protect your legal rights. The initial consultation is free of charge.

Attorney Marius Ged The Deal:

Miami-based Rigstar II Holdings paid $11.92 million for a 156,871-square-foot warehouse in northern Miami-Dade County. First Industrial Realty Trust was the seller in the deal that closed July 24.

Details: Ged, who represented Rigstar, worked on the deal for nearly nine months. First Industrial originally wanted $17.25 million, or $110 per square foot. Eventually, the Chicago-based real estate investment trust agreed to sell for $75.98 per square foot.

“On a price per square foot basis, we did pretty well,” Ged said. The 2-year-old warehouse, at 10910 NW 92nd Terrace, is within the Flagler Station business park, which has about 9 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space.

Rigstar plans to turn the warehouse into the logistical headquarters for a company that exports and imports electronics to Latin America. Rigstar is led by Ghassan Abboud, according to the Florida Division of Corporations. Rigstar obtained an $8.2 million mortgage from Citibank for 70 percent of the purchase price.

Ged said negotiations were complex in part because the seller wasn’t familiar with Florida laws, especially how property taxes are calculated. “I learned that when you are dealing with an out-of-state seller on a transaction this large, to require them to get local counsel because they don’t understand the nuances of Florida laws,” he said. “And it just becomes more difficult.”

Background: Ged is an attorney with Ellis Ged & Bodden. He leads the firm’s real estate, estate planning, asset protection and corporate business transactional departments. First Industrial was represented by Chicago attorney Dapo Adedeji of Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg.

The Dangers of Texting and Driving

Lately, it seems as if text messaging has become the preferred mode of communication for millions. As cell phones become more utilized on the road, driving tragedies involving text messaging, while behind the wheel, have been increasing.

One such recent tragedy involved a 17-year-old girl from Eureka, Illinois. The coroner stated that the teenager was texting when she lost control of her car and was killed. Based upon the data recovered from her cell phone, investigators found that she was sending and receiving text messages when the accident occurred.

Texting poses serious, sometimes fatal distractions to all drivers, but particularly teenagers. According to the Centers for Disease Control, auto accidents are the leading cause of death for people between 16 and 20, killing more than 5000 annually. Increasingly, drivers are texting on their phones and this is placing others at risk. Recent studies show that text messaging is a growing cause of auto accidents in the United States. Motorists who text message have been found to be more distracted and more likely to be involved in an accident.

A new study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that when drivers engaged in texting while driving, their risk of an accident was 23 times greater than when not texting. This study showed that texting is much more dangerous than other driving distractions. The study also demonstrated that drivers spent almost five seconds looking at their cell phones while texting and driving.

An experiment this year with Car and Driver editor Eddie Alterman revealed that texting while driving had more of a negative impact on driver safety than being drunk. Although being legally intoxicated added four feet to Alterman's stopping distance at 70 mph, reading an e-mail added 36 feet and sending a text added 70 feet.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia currently have full bans on texting while driving. Legislators in some states have rejected such rules. Some say they need more data to decide whether to ban the activity.

If you or a loved one has been involved in an auto accident due to another driver's texting or negligence, you should consult with an attorney to learn about the laws of your state and your legal rights.