Two firms filed a joint lawsuit against Ohio State Monday, acting on behalf of students who experienced mold exposure while living in Lawrence Tower. Credit: Casey Smith | Lantern File Photo
Two firms filed a joint lawsuit against Ohio State Monday, acting on behalf of students who experienced mold exposure while living in Lawrence Tower.
The lawsuit was brought forth by over 50 students and their parents, according to a press release from the firms. Thirty-two plaintiffs are named in the court complaint. The case was filed under Jack Barga, et al. v. The Ohio State University in the Ohio Court of Claims, as well as a concurrent lawsuit filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas for the Ohio Consumer Sales Practice Act claims.
Just Well Law operates out of Austin, Texas, and specializes in toxic exposure cases, while Bressman Law is an Ohio-based personal injury firm. Kristina S. Baehr — a national trial lawyer and founder of Just Well Law — along with David A. Bressman and Jedediah I. Bressman — a father-son attorney team at Bressman Law — are representing the plaintiffs who have potentially been harmed by the dorm’s mold growth.
For the plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit, requested economic damages start at $1,000 per person and cannot exceed $5,000 per person, according to the court complaint. The complaint demands total “compensatory damages in an amount more than $25,000.00.”
Baehr said in a press release the lawsuit highlights a “long-term systematic failure by university officials entrusted to keep students safe.”
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges “dozens of first-year Ohio State University students were sickened by a dormitory mold-infestation known to but not disclosed by the university,” according to the press release.
University spokesperson Dave Isaacs said the university “does not comment on ongoing litigation.”
The press release states the university is being accused of negligence, implied warranty of habitability, nuisance and fraud.
The lawsuit alleges Ohio State knew about the mold problem after it acquired Lawrence Tower in 2009 and began converting the building into student housing, according to the press release.
“Employees of Ohio State admitted that they were trying to cram two years’ worth of work into renovating Lawrence Hall into six months,” the court complaint states. “According to the Franklin County Auditor’s site, those renovations may have only taken 2 months.”
The court complaint features photos taken by students in Lawrence Tower, including mold on ceilings, employees covering up the mold in the dorm rooms and a mushroom growing out of a student’s wall.
“As many of the pictures below show, the dorms were not ‘Rate 1’ under any interpretation,” the court complaint states. “They had become simply dangerous.”
Parents and students in Lawrence Tower paid for Rate 1 housing, which is $5,045 per semester, according to the Office of Student Life’s Housing and Residence Education webpage.
Baehr said in the press release that when the semester began, students and parents were not aware “they were entering and unloading their personal belongings into a toxic time bomb.”
“The lawsuit will show who at Ohio State knew about the mold problems —– and for how long,” Baehr said. “Rather than acknowledge the problem, Ohio State looked at sick students and told them that they couldn’t be sick.”
According to previous Lantern reporting, all Lawrence Tower students were relocated before the 2025 spring semester began. These students were given the options to move to other on-campus housing, move to master-leased off-campus locations or cancel their housing contracts.
University spokesperson Ben Johnson said the university has been working closely with Columbus Public Health to investigate its air quality and keep up health and safety protocols, per previous Lantern reporting.
Initial preparations for the lawsuit began Nov. 22, 2024, when parents and students affected by the dorm’s mold growth conversed with each other through the “Lawrence Tower Ohio State Freshman 2024” Facebook page.
Parents who wanted to be represented in the lawsuit could sign an investigation agreement against the university from Just Well Law, according to the Facebook group’s page.
“Ohio State students have the right to expect safe air in their school dorms, and their parents have the right to expect that they will be safe at school,” Jedidiah Bressman stated in the press release. “And yet the university subjected students to a dorm that it knew, or should have known, was sickening and mold-infested. The widespread mold in Lawrence Tower was no secret – except for the families that trusted the university.”
