‘Mold Cleaners’ May Be Taking You to the Cleaners

Now that the dangers of “toxic mold” in homes have become well-known, a new industry has sprung up –– that of “industrial hygienists,” who test buildings for mold and recommend solutions, and “mold remediators,” who perform clean-up work.

Unfortunately, this new business is almost completely unregulated. Virtually anyone can set up shop as an “industrial hygienist” with hardly any qualifications at all. And many homeowners are now claiming that the “experts” they hired to clean their house ended up taking them to the cleaners instead.

One such homeowner is TV personality Ed McMahon, who recently sued three mold remediators for damaging his house without fixing the problem.

In Texas, one remediation company was recently shut down after state

investigators found that it was doing shoddy work. A spokesman for the state attorney general said, “We don’t think it’s an isolated case.”

Common problems include:

. Companies use bleach to remove mold from the surface, but don’t solve the underlying water penetration problem.

. Companies treat mold remediation like a regular construction job, and perform the work in brief spurts over time. The delays allow the mold to multiply.

. Companies treat mold removal like asbestos removal. But the two are different, because mold is organic and can grow and spread.

If you hire someone to clean up mold in your house, be careful and check references. And if the mold comes back, talk to your lawyer.

Contracts That Limit Your Rights Are Not Always Right

Ordinarily, if you sign a contract, you’re bound by what it says. But even if you signed on the dotted line, a court might let you out of it if what it says is truly unfair. Here are two examples:

. A California couple hired a home inspector. The inspector’s contract said that if the couple wanted to sue the inspector for making a mistake, they had to do so within a year of the inspection.

The couple later claimed the inspector did a bad job, including failing to discover asbestos in the house, and that they got sick as a result. But they didn’t discover the problem until more than a year had passed.

So were they out of luck?

No. The California Court of Appeals refused to enforce the one-year provision. It said it was simply unreasonable to expect that a homeowner could unearth everything an inspector missed within a single year after the inspection.

. A Colorado couple was driving at night when a car headed toward them in their lane. They swerved to avoid it and hit a large rock, injuring themselves. The other driver left the

scene and was never identified. No one else saw the accident.

The couple had an uninsured motorist policy, but the policy said that if the couple were injured by a hit-and-run driver and the cars didn’t come into contact, they couldn’t collect unless they had an independent witness to corroborate the event.

So were they out of luck?

No. The Colorado Court of Appeals said the “independent witness” provision was unfair. It said that since the couple had paid premiums for coverage, it was unreasonable to make coverage depend on a chance event (the presence of an unrelated witness) over which they had no control.

Moral: Even if you signed a contract –– whether it’s a service agreement, an insurance policy, an agreement with a contractor, a release of liability, etc. –– the contract may be no good if it’s unreasonable. Unless you discuss it with a lawyer, you won’t know whether an agreement that takes away some of your rights just isn’t right.

Dramatic Increase In Claims Against Stockbrokers

Complaints filed against stockbrokers are up sharply, as a result of investor losses from the recent bear market.

The number of claims filed at the New York Stock Exchange doubled in 2002, and the National Association of Securities Dealers says the number could come close to doubling again in 2003.

Of course, just because you lost money in the market doesn’t mean your

stockbroker did anything wrong. But some investors are successfully claiming that their brokers were so caught up in the dot-com boom that they recommended stocks that were unsuitable for their portfolio. Others are claiming that their brokers recommended stocks not because they were good buys, but in an effort to win business from those companies.

Woman Sues Church For Pastor’s Seduction

A Minnesota woman claimed that she went to a pastor for spiritual counseling, and he seduced her into an affair. She then sued the church.

The church argued that the suit violated the First Amendment. It said a court couldn’t hear the case without becoming entangled in issues of church practice and governance, and this would violate freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

But the Minnesota Court of Appeals disagreed. It said that all a court had to do was determine whether the pastor was employed by the church and whether the counseling was part of his job –– and it could do that without getting deeply involved in religious doctrine.

Pet Store Liable for Customer’s Fall

Petsmart, the pet store chain, encourages its customers to bring their pets into the store. In one case in Kentucky, a customer brought a dog into the store, and the dog relieved itself on the floor. Another customer slipped on the mess and injured herself.

Who’s responsible? A court said that Petsmart might have to pay.

Petsmart said the problem on the floor was obvious and that the injured

customer should have watched where she was going.

But the court said the problem wasn’t really obvious because most customers walk around looking at the items on the shelves, not the floors of the aisles. Also, since Petsmart encouraged people to bring dogs into the store, it should have been especially careful about keeping the floor clean.