Spore House

Room For Rent: The county still rents the Annex for $4,641 per month. After undergoing further remediation for water and mold problems in 2008-09, its again occupied by a team from the DAs office.

Beverly Forests lawyer wasnt sure Forest would be able to endure the hours of questioning.

In a June 6 email, plaintiffs attorney Gordon Stemple warned defending attorneys that Forest would be arriving for a deposition in a wheelchair, with an oxygen tank and a nurse attendant, and would require frequent bathroom breaks.

Forest has cancer. Shes been in and out of hospitals for six months, weighs 100 pounds and is dying. Her lawyers worry she wont survive long enough to see the conclusion of a two-year-old lawsuit that claims a moldy office environment at the District Attorneys office exacerbated her condition.

Forest is one of nine plaintiffs who worked in the Monterey County District Attorneys Fraud Investigation Unit, a group that was assigned to a boxy stucco building on West Gabilan Street known as the Annex.

The only thing my clients have in common is going into this building and coming out sick, says Monterey-based attorney David Churchill, also representing the plaintiffs.

In an October 2010 complaint, those nine staffers allege mold in the building gave them symptoms such as shortness of breath, recurring headaches, itchy eyes and bloody noses over several years.

Insurance adjusters and attorneys spent all day Sept. 27 in mediation in San Jose, where they tried and failed to reach an agreement. Now the case is headed toward a jury trial, set to begin in Monterey County Oct. 29.

The plaintiffs attorneys would not make their clients available to for interviews, but court documents tell a complex story about liability. The questions focus on whether mold is responsible for the illnesses, and if so, whos responsible for the damages and how much.

Though visitors and workers long noted a musty, offensive, foul smell in the Annex, a series of tests for mold spores show differing accounts of how toxic the building really was.

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Spore House