A litigation update from the law firm of Wood Smith Henning & Berman (WSHB) said that mold bodily injury claims won't turn into the “new asbestos” any time soon because of successful defense strategies, mold exclusions in policies, and plaintiffs' difficulties in proving their cases.
The assertion was made in a report released by the firm last month entitled, “Trends in Mold Bodily Injury Litigation: What Lies Ahead for this Once Emerging Tort.” It stated that in 61 percent of mold bodily injury verdicts, the plaintiffs were awarded no monetary damages. (The report did not include claims involving mold as a cause of property damage.)
WSHB said that mold claims won't achieve mass tort status like asbestos because alleged injuries differ from case to case. Whereas asbestos causes similar symptoms and injuries in affected individuals, each mold case features different injuries, different theories as to the cause of the mold growth, and different distinct injury-causing agents because there are thousands of different mold species. This means cases can't be tried in class-action format, which WSHB said is the main reason mold has not become similar to asbestos.
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