Lawsuits over formaldehyde in trailers likely won't target dealers

An Indiana expert on the effects of formaldehyde exposure said it's likely to be years before any lawsuits by Hurricane Katrina victims claiming injury from the substance in trailers provided by a federal agency are settled.

Thad Godish, a Ball State University professor, said plaintiffs' 

lawyers are likely to focus more on trailer manufacturers than on dealers such as Stinnett RV Freedom Center of Clarksville, which sold or participated with others in the sale of 6,000 trailers to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I don't think they need to worry too much," Godish said of trailer dealers, based on his work as an expert in formaldehyde-exposure lawsuits.

But Tony Buzbee of Houston, who is in a group of lawyers representing an estimated 10,000 residents or former residents of FEMA trailers suing the manufacturers, said yesterday that he expects the agency and possibly some dealers to be added to the litigation.

Formaldehyde is used in composite-wood and particle-board products in trailers.

Six law firms have joined in a litigation steering committee to handle about a dozen trailer cases that were consolidated in federal court in New Orleans in December, Buzbee said.

They include two class-action lawsuits and a number of "mass actions"  

in which hundreds of participants are making similar claims against 14 trailer manufacturers, he said.

So far, Buzbee said, dealers aren't named. But he said he expects that could change as the cases proceed, depending on whether laws in the states involved make dealers potentially responsible for health problems.

A study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last week found that one-third of 519 trailers that were tested and are being used by Katrina victims had formaldehyde levels high enough to create breathing problems for children, the elderly and susceptible adults.

The levels were high enough in 5 percent of the homes to make healthy adults ill, the study found.

Formaldehyde is a preservative that can irritate the respiratory system and is classified as a probable carcinogen by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency.

FEMA had no comment on the formaldehyde liability issue.

"At this time, FEMA has not made a decision regarding future legal actions against manufacturers or dealers," said Alexandra Kirin, the agency's news desk manager.

Tom Stinnett, owner of Stinnett RV, said he's not worried about the lawsuits. His company initially was named in one of the class actions, Stinnett said, but was dropped after his lawyer notified the plaintiffs' lawyers he was a dealer and not a manufacturer.

"We were only an agent between FEMA and the manufacturers," Stinnett said. "These trailers didn't even hit our lot."

He said he doubts there is any liability because there are no national standards for formaldehyde levels in the travel trailers used by FEMA. 

But because formaldehyde can be an irritant in new trailers, he said, he always tells customers that the windows have to be opened and the trailers aired out for a few days.

Godish said claims of health problems from exposure to formaldehyde in trailers can be difficult to prove. After years of litigation, a case may lead to a relatively small settlement, he said.

Godish said he has consulted on about 300 lawsuits involving health problems in trailers and mobile homes, most of them in the 1980s and 1990s, before manufacturers improved the quality of the particle board they used.