Parents of dozens of Ohio State University students have sued the university after the students were exposed to mold and forced to move out of their residence hall during the fall semester.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that suit contends that the university's handling of conditions at Lawrence Tower was negligent and violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act.
The Just Well Law firm filed the suit on behalf of more than 50 students that moved into the premium "Rate 1" Lawrence Tower in August 2024. The residence hall is a former Holiday Inn in Columbus that the university purchased in 2009.
"The excitement of the first semester of college – new school, new friends, and academic aspirations – was soon replaced by consistent coughs, brain fog, and other respiratory symptoms they could not easily shake," according to the lawsuit.
"Mushrooms began growing out of Lawrence Tower walls, and the mold issues became undeniable," the suit asserts. "Students began to suspect what was making them sick: unsafe air. Once the wallpaper began separating from walls to reveal black, yellow, and even purple mold."
Parents paid for an analysis of the air quality in the rooms, and that test found 27 of 28 rooms had air quality issues, according to the suit. Photographs showed various types of mold growing behind drywall and, in at least one instance, a mushroom growing on the wall.
Lawrence Tower has more than 130 rooms, housing one to four students.
An Ohio State spokesperson said in November that the university conducted its own air-quality testing for all rooms in Lawrence Tower.
The university said a water leak in a pipe in a utility chase caused drywall damage. At first, about 40 students in 19 rooms were moved out of the residence hall in November. The following week, Ohio State announced that it would be moving all of the students living in Lawrence Tower, about 500 total, to other accommodations on campus.
The lawsuit asserts that when the university acquired Lawrence Tower in 2009, renovations that should have taken two years were completed in as few as two months. The renovations included little or no remediation of known mold and asbestos issues at the property, the suit contends.
