How to Navigate Legally Through Poor Indoor Air Quality

I left ultimately the Department of Justice, where I was working at the time, and I built a personal injury firm I couldn't find for my own family.

Thank you guys for watching another episode of the CTA Summit. Christina Baer is our next guest. Christina, welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

I'm glad to be here.

All right, so it's my understanding you have an amazing presentation to share.

Well, I want to talk about mold cases. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And there is good, bad, and ugly.

Oh, there is. I'm sure I've been on some of these with you, so I know firsthand.

So ready for me to get started?

Please do.

Okay, first, I just want to introduce myself. My name is Christina Baer. I started a law firm called Just well, because I literally just want people to be well and get well, because I'm a survivor, too. I got really sick in a house that I was in. We were there for eight years, and my family got sick. And I started building a case against our own builders, the people who made us sick. And they weren't bad people, but they made a lot of bad choices that poisoned my family. And I started calling around to get lawyers and get help. And basically, I couldn't find a lawyer in Texas to take my call. So I left ultimately the Department of Justice where I was working at the time, and I built the personal injury firm I couldn't find for my own family. And around that time, CNBC did a story on my family and linked to my website, and I got 1,000 calls in two weeks. And one of those was New Michael. But because people desperately, desperately need help, and there aren't enough lawyers to help them. And so my mission is to grow up an army of lawyers to help people who've been affected by toxic exposure, whether it's water or air or really, really anything toxic, because so many people are sick and they don't know where to go for help. And at the very least, we will help point you in the right direction, whether we can take your case or not. So what I want to do today is talk a little bit about what I've learned in my own case and in the ones that I've been litigating about the good, the bad, and the ugly about a toxic mold case. And again, like I said, I do toxic water and other kinds of toxins. But today we're going to focus on indoor air quality and toxic error. So let me pull up my presentation here.

Awesome. Thank you.

Okay. The good, the bad and the ugly. I'm going to talk about how we litigate cases generally as a plaintiff and the safety rules that we use. And then the science, the good cases and the bad mold cases, and what makes a good one and what makes a bad one. And then ultimately, how much are these cases worth, if anything at all? Because I think a lot of lawyers will tell you that they're not worth anything, and I. I don't believe that. I think your suffering is worth something. So in any given personal injury case, we want to talk about safety rules because. And this is going to be upsetting to you, but juries don't really care all that much about the victim stories. What they care about at a very gut level is their own safety. They want to know, could this happen to them? And so the way you capture a jury is to point out the safety rules that have been broken by this defendant. And the stronger the safety rule, the more important that safety rule is, the better result you're going to get if the defendant has broken that safety rule. And so these ones are really easy. You know, a landlord must provide a home with safe air to protect all of us from mayhem, illness, cancer, death. A landlord must provide a home with safe air. And if you ask any landlord at deposition, they'll tell you, a landlord must provide a home with safe air. So you get them to buy into the rule, and then you show how they refuse to do that in this particular case or that particular case. Likewise, a builder must provide a home with safe air to protect all of us. Right? Because if a builder isn't able to provide a home with safe air, then that home's not safe. And we know when we think about homes, we think about families and we think about kids in the yard, and we think about growing old together in that house. And I was thinking today about my own house that we lost and how it was a safe haven, not just for us, but we had a church group that met there every Monday night for 10 years. And it was a safe haven for them, right? That was where they. That was where they felt safe and where they grew in community. And so when we lost our house, they lost our house, too. They lost that house, too. So those are the types of things that we want to invoke in a. In a case to really drive home the point that landlords and builders are charged with protecting us, with protecting all of us. So this is my own case, but I want to show you how a picture tells a thousand words. This is my daughter, Meline. I'm going to try not to cry. Behind her was a wall of stachybotrys. And that is the wall that was right behind her head. And we had this wonderful mold inspector named Tim Taylor. And I think Tim Taylor saved her life. But he came into my living room. He said, tell me about your family. And I told them about Maddie and how Maddie had become really different overnight. And she might watch this. So I'm going to be careful about what I say. But she became a different kid. And I had started to suspect when I learned about mycotoxins, that maybe it was mycotoxins. So he said, I often find it behind the wall of the kid most affected. And he took a flashlight to her wall, and he found water damage. And we took the wall apart, and this is what we found. That wall looked like was just full of microbial growth and. And just rot. But these are my kids who were brain damaged. I have four kids, and two of them were the ones who were most affected. And that is the two in this picture. Maddie and my little son Scott. But you can see, right, just from a case perspective, I think this is a powerful image of the room can look as pretty as the one on the right, but lurking in the walls is what's on the left. So this is where they slept, and then this is where they ate. We pulled away the kitchen banquette, and this is what it looked like, just thick microbial growth. We learned that that was Kytomia, which is a very dangerous kind of black mold. There were millions of spores. Then we learned that they just. This builder just attached tile to particle board. So mold also grew in the children's bathroom. And then, of course, this is the plenum of the entire house. We had one H vac system that serviced the house. And the plenum is the part of the H vac system that where all the ducts connect. And this is what it looked like. So the air we were breathing in the whole house was coming through a thick layer of toxic mold. And then, of course, the entire interior. And you can come up with a floor plan, and you map the test results to the floor plan. And in my case, this is what that looked like. Now, a picture tells a thousand words. In almost every case, I have one that looks like this, which is a picture of the H Vac, because almost always, when you take a vent down, you see this. And what's upsetting in these cases is that the landlords just paint over it. So in this particular plaintiff's house, the plaintiff had actually My client had actually had a mold inspector over, but that mold inspector didn't take the vent off because it was painted. And so it was just, you know, why would. He couldn't mess with it. Right. Well, then she had my favorite mold inspector, Josh, Rachel, come. And of course, Josh, Rachel got. Got a screwdriver and pulled the thing off. And this is what it looked like. I mean, this is the air that she was breathing. Right. And it had just been painted over, so it hadn't been checked in years. And you can get almost any landlord to admit that, you know, you need to check the H vac. That's one of their main responsibilities as a landlord is not just to repair, but to maintain. And maintaining means to keep something in good repair. Well, this is obviously not in good repair, and you can get a pretty easy admission on that. So I asked Jessica Hill, a leasing agent of that unit that I just showed with that picture, I said, would you ever sleep in that apartment after I showed her this picture? No. Right. So. So that's. That's what a case is like. All right, the science is the science there. This is what the H VAC looked like in my own house. Every single mycotoxin, right? And sometimes we can link the mycotoxins in an H vac, which I always like to test, by the way, the H vac. Because what's in the H vac is necessarily what's coming into the rest of the house. And you can test one room or another room, but the H vac is basically the same as testing the whole house, right? Not if you're trying to find it for what you do, Michael. But if you're trying to prove a case that mold is in this house, I do the H vac.

Totally.

So, you know, in this case, every. Every. I had every single mycotoxin other than one. But we talked about this earlier. The science is real. These are just some peer reviewed literature about the impact of mold exposure. And many, many of you know this already. And I know that I'm preaching to the choir for some of you, but what toxic exposure does is it creates a cytokine storm that's a lot like long Covid. And it's multi systemic. So it can. That cytokine storm can attack your heart, it can attack your brain, it can attack your gi. I mean, it attack every system. And so as a result, we see a wide range of symptoms in people. We see immune dysfunction, we see cognitive impairment, we see cardiac issues, insomnia, child development issues. And the more we move ahead in science the more we see how important air quality is. And I think, you know, there used to be a time when this wasn't recognized and now it's just universally proven in the literature. This is not, you know, there was a time when this would have been called junk science. And this is not junk science. So when this happened to me, I went to the literature and I started reading the articles themselves, the peer reviewed literature, and then I found some of those authors and I got to know them and I have them testify in some of my cases. So this is a WHO, World Health Organization, ICD10 code. I still come across defendants and experts who don't believe that toxic mold exposure is a real thing. But I get them to acknowledge that the World Health Organization is a. Professional credited organization. Right? It is, it, it is at the height of the, of the medical profession. And so if the World Health Organization organization recognizes toxic mold exposure, then it's, it's real. It's real. Okay, so what makes a good case or a bad case when it comes to a mold exposure case? Well, the good is, is there a certified mold inspection report? Many times if you are a land a tenant in a, in a big building, you think it's your landlord's responsibility to call a mold assessor. And that's true. That is true. They should absolutely be calling mold assessors. But the problem is, is that they won't. And even if they do, they'll call a mold. They just listen, they've been around the block. They will call their mold assessor who will take an air sample from the middle of the room and they will say, it's done, totally clear, you're totally fine. And what I like to do with those guys is I ask them, is it, is it more likely to find air mold in the, if you're looking for mold in a wall, is it more likely to find a test result to be positive if the test is taken close to the wall or in the middle of the room and they like lose their minds. They're like, but you bought a mold assessor who's actually going to look for mold and they're going to wipe the walls and they're going to, you know, maybe even look inside the walls, which is what Josh Rachel does. He opens up the walls and he just puts a scope in. He looks up there. They can tell you if you're molding the walls or not. This is not rocket science. Okay? You want a mold assessor who will actually look for mold. If you think that there's mold in your house. And then is the client willing and able to see a doctor? Some people will and some people won't, but we just want. If we're going to say that you're injured because of mold, we need to have a doctor who's tied your symptoms to your exposure. Have you already left the house or are you planning to leave the house? That's. I'm really sorry to say that that is just a threshold of whether we can take the case. Because, Michael, I can't claim that your house is uninhabitable if you're still there. And you know, that's. I understand not everyone can leave. I've been in situations where I couldn't leave either, and I understand that. It's just you're not going to be able to bring a case if you're still in the house, or at least you're not going to be able to bring a case for a personal injury. Have you lost any belongings? Have you lost wages? Have you. You know, do you have a bunch of different specialists? And then importantly, do you have a solvent defendant? Because if it's a small construction company there, they might not have the cash and their insurance often won't cover it. Because we know that insurance companies are accepting mold from their policies, which is upsetting on a different level. What makes a bad. What makes not a bad case, but a good case for bad reasons, and that's bad conduct. These are some of the comments. These are some of the factors in my cases often. Did they cons. Did the defendant conceal mold? And I mean, time and time again, I have a landlord that just says, oh, don't worry, we're going to take care of it. And they just come in and they paint over it, and you think it's gone because you don't see it anymore, but it's still there. It's now just concealed. And they do that intentionally. I mean, in that. In a case with that leasing agent that I showed you earlier. In that case, their first response, if there is mold or an accusation of mold, is just to call a painter. Well, that can't be the answer. We can't just be painting over mold in every house. Right. Mislabeling it. So in Texas, it is actually a violation of code for them to come in and say that it's not mold because you can't label or not label mold in. In our state unless you have a license. But maintenance will come in and say, oh, no, no, don't worry about that. That's Just dust. That's just dust. We're going to clean that up for you. And they'll even take the vent off and take it outside, clean it up and put it back. And then you, you know, they're kind of making you think, like, oh, we dealt with it. But if you actually stop to think about it, no, the system has it, and it's full of mold in the system. If you haven't taken the ducks out, right, it's still there. But if you don't know this stuff, you can kind of think, oh, they thank you. They took care of it. Likewise, they might come and clean out the ducts. Well, first of all, if you don't put containment out up and you clean out the ducts, all that crap from the ducts is coming right into the unit. So it's only making people sicker. Right? But also, the mold in that unit is probably coming from somewhere other than just the ducks. The ducks is just a reflection of a mold problem in the place. So if you don't address the source of the water damage or the source of the humidity or water intrusion, then the H vac is just going to grow up, you know, fill up again. Michael, you and I talked about that whole development where they didn't have any vapor barriers in a beach town. So, you know, the floors were full of mold. But if you called them and said, hey, you know, I think I have a mold problem here, feeling dizzy or whatever, they would send somebody to clean out your ducts, right. Knowing full well that the problem is not the H vac. The problem was the floor. But they would just completely ignore the floor and just clean the ducts and call it a day. So this is the kind of really bad behavior that we see a lot. Gaslighting is when you treat someone as if what they're saying is not true when you know it to be true, right? And so there's a tremendous amount of gaslighting. And saying something that's just dust or not to worry or we're going to take care of it can be really, really traumatic for our clients because they. They know something's wrong, but they don't quite know what. And when they have a landlord or a builder just saying, shh, it's okay, they get really. Can be really upsetting and confusing. So then from a. From. From just a remediation standpoint, Michael, you know, all the problems, right, There's. They don't hire a certified remediator. They come in and they just tear it all up, right? Which makes it way, way, way worse. And then we, you know, we can have reckless construction defects. In my own case, one of the problems. There were many problems, but one of the problems was that they didn't flash the chimney. And they knew they didn't flash it, and they just rigged it to make it look like it had been flashed because the mason and the roofer hadn't been there at the same time, which is required to flash a chimney. So they just rigged it. So in my case, that was intentional. You don't always get that. You usually just get recklessness. But, you know, like I said, these make for easy, easy depositions, right? Because you can just say, hey, now let me get this straight. Are you a certified inspector?

Nope.

Why did you think it was dust?

Because it looked like dust.

I mean, and I love showing them a picture and, and asking them if. If they would ever live in that place. Because almost always I get a hell, no, right? Hell no.

They can't help it. They're just like, no.

Well, they're on. They're under oath. They're under oath. But you'll. So. So here's one line of questioning that I had with one defendant. I said, okay, water that's contaminated with. Okay, poop. Sewage water that has, that has. That's toxic, right? Oh, well, I don't know what toxic means. Okay, there are bio contaminants in the sewage. True, true. Well, if you put a fan on wet materials that are wet with sewage, those bio contaminants are going to go in the air. Right, Right. I guess that makes sense. Well, now that we've had this conversation, will you ever again put a fan on sewage material? Well, no. Would you ever spend a night in one of these apartments where that was your very first answer to every sewage leak? No. I mean, case closed, right? Case closed. Okay, so some challenges are private landlords. If it's just a guy, you know, I think juries are going to feel bad about that guy. Like not knowing what to do with mold or not. Clients who won't leave. Like I mentioned earlier, if the landlord has done the testing, even if the testing is bad, it's hard for us to use that because we really need the certified mold assessor to testify on our behalf. And if the inspector was hired by the landlord, I'm not going to be able to get that testimony. And then over litigating. So I, you know, Michael, you've been with me on some of these cases where, man, they just go to the mat. And I have a case where at Mediation, they offered nothing. I mean, they offered 50 grand. Right. And we said, okay, well, we're going to trial, I guess. Well, the next week they filed eight briefs and an emergency appellate motion to stay the case. And the case actually is stayed right now. But they've spent just insane amounts of money on the briefing in that case. And it's interesting because if the case is not worth very much, why would they spend, why would they hire the best appellate lawyers in the state? Right. So over litigating can be really challenging because if you have a small shop like me on one side, it's really hard for me to garner the resources I need to overcome the over litigation. But we just prevailed on that issue in a case in North Carolina and it was well worth it. That case was incredibly over litigated. It was against a very large company. It's confidential, so I'm not going to explain who they are, but it was against a very, very big company and they hired a very big firm and they had five big firm partners on this case against me and my partner, who is a brand new lawyer, and my partner was from local counsel in North Carolina. And we did it. We just hung in there and we fought every motion and we briefed every issue and we just went to the map for our clients. And we will continue to do that every single time, no matter what, no matter what they throw at us. We can handle it. But it does make it, it does make it hard. Okay, you know, where's the money in these cases, if there is any? Because I think a lot of people would say they're just not worth very much, especially in Texas. You know, these cases are just, you know, Christina, didn't you get the memo? These cases die in like the 2000s. We don't do this anymore in Texas. And I don't believe that's true because this, this is it, right? This is it. This is.

Unbelievable.

So this is what, you know, your brain looks like, what it's supposed to look like on the right and what it actually looks like on the left after a lot of brain damage from toxic mold exposure. So that's, that's my 10 year old daughter.

Wow.

So when we get the pictures, when we get the pictures and we're able to show that this is actually what it looks like. Right. It's, it's giving away your favorite pony. It's. Those are my two, my two boys. And this is what it was like for a year, just doctor after doctor after doctor trying to figure out what's going on. Trying to make them better. Right. So when I was on the defensive side of personal injury cases, I knew how to spot a case. Right. If it's a valid case. And in my own case, as I was starting to build it, I thought, man, we've lost our house. We've lost everything in it. We have six people who are really, really sick, and we're now homeless, basically. That is a very valuable case. But the challenge is, you know, the defense counsels don't necessarily see it that way, but the juries do. So we've done some jury studies, and we've asked them, does mold make people sick? And by the way, in that case in North Carolina, I asked, like, five executives, does mold make you sick? None of them can answer that question. None of them can answer their question. Well, I'd have to defer to a doctor. That really calls for an expert. I'm really not sure. I. I don't know. Like, what planet are you on? People, if I ask, do you need.

A dentist to tell you what happens to your teeth if you don't brush them?

Right. I mean, what. So, you know, ask Betty, Jake, Roxanne, Melissa, Claire, Faron, Joseph. Like, does mold make you sick? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You ask them, how much should a family that's been affected by mold exposure settle for?

Wow.

Not. Not how much they. And this is a. This is a family with this. This is an example from a sick. A very sick family. Okay. This is not a small mold case. This is a big mold case. But how much should you settle for? I mean, in the millions. So I don't know how to pick, you know, Maureen, I don't know how to pick a number, but I can see going very high. Regardless of What Texas allows, 20 million or more is a good number to try and hold builders and others in building accountable. And, Michael, that's really what this is all about. What I want to do, and I know what you want to do, is to change the industry. And the only way we're going to change the industry is if they are held accountable. So what I do when I'm, you know, I consider myself to be enforcing those safety rules that we talked about, that builders must build safe houses and landlords must provide safe homes. Right. And the way that we enforce that in this country, the way we enforce the safety rules, is through private litigation. And we say this isn't okay. And as a country, we're not going to tolerate this. We're going to require builders to build safe homes, and we're going to require landlords to provide homes where you can breathe right, Homes that aren't going to make us sick. Because if we're sick, we can't be mission ready. So many things we can't do right if we're sick. My clients often, it's not. They want recovery so that they can recover their lives, so they can rebuild their lives. But more than anything, they want to make sure it never happens again, that the builders actually change or the landlords actually change. And one of the things we've been able to do in several cases now is require as part of our settlement agreement that the builder or the remediator, whoever it was, right, the housing company revisit their own policies in light of the IICRC and change their practices. So, you know, our clients aren't getting millions of dollars yet. I hope that that will come. And sometimes I know that they do in these cases. Our firm's brand new, so we haven't, we haven't had the multimillion dollar verdicts yet. But they're coming. I know they're coming. But what we do have are very, very real settlements with real dollars where we're allowed. We're able to present this to the defendants. And by deposition or at mediation, I'm able to speak to the decision makers and to say what happened here isn't okay and it's still going and you need to make it stop so that you provide a safe home for the kids who are, you know, currently living there or the kids who are going to be in the houses that you create so little by little. I think that these cases will change the industry and we just want more lawyers doing them. And if you know of any, you're listening to this or watching this, and you know of any lawyers who want to do these cases, please put me in touch with them because I get calls from all over the, all over the country, and I'm desperate to find good lawyers to hand these cases to and to help them succeed. So it's going to take an army. But thanks for listening. That's what I got. Questions. Welcome, Michael.

Well, Christina, first off, thank you so much for all that you do. You know, I know there's no award show for this, but it is, it is very much appreciated. And to be frank, I think that we need massive change across a spectrum of industries. And I think the, the, one of the bigger ways you get change is by, unfortunately, you know, people learning the hard way. And what is the hard way? Well, it costing them money. And that'll make them change the way in which they view certain issues. Right. For the most part. Some people. Anyway, I wanted to, just because in case people didn't grasp what makes a case good, I thought it might be helpful to kind of go almost step by step.

Sure.

I'm a renter or it doesn't matter from renting, or I bought a home from a builder. Right. I'm in a situation where there's somebody else that's liable for the damages that are, that are happening. What is. Take me through step by step, what I should do to build a case to be able to give to you, for you to say, this is a good case.

So the first thing you need to do is hire an independent certified mold assessor to come and tell us, is there mold in what quantities and where is it coming from? Why? And, you know, bonus points if there are great pictures. Take a picture of that H Vac. That is my crown jewel. In any case, I'm showing that at mediation. I'm showing that in my opening. This is what their error looked like. Why? Because the defendant never opened it. Because the defendant didn't care. Right. Like case closed. Case closed. So pictures are worth a thousand words. And take pictures of your own stuff. Right. If you're going to the doctor, if you're doing hyperbarics, I showed you some of those pictures. Capture it. Capture it. Because pictures are everything. But don't give. On the other hand, don't give me a thousand pictures. Like, pick your top five, please. Okay. Like, I can't sort through thousands, but give me, give me your best one. So hire a certified mold assessor. Go to a mold literate doctor, and if you're wondering where you find one, please reach out to my office. No matter where you are in the country, it's, well, dot law. Well, well. And we'll, we'll send you our list of resources and tell you how to find certified mold assessors and how to find mold literate doctors. But it's best if you do that before you leave the house so that you can document that this is what you were like when you were in the house. And then you can start, you know, getting better as you, as you move out. But what we see a lot is sometimes people move out of the house and then they don't have access to, to have their certified mold assessor back there. And then if my testing is too late at another time, it's still good. But it's better if it's documented at the time that they're there. Yeah.

And you said, go to a mold literate doctor. So I would imagine testing, any sort of testing that can correlate the home with the body would be key.

So you can do mycotoxin testing, which is what I did. Um, so you can take, do urine testing that, that shows like the mycotoxins in your body match the mycotoxins, not H Vac. Right. And my score for my son's got the level is 8. The acceptable level is 8. And his was 108. And that's when I knew that I was like, I gotta find the best, the best expert in the country for pediatrics. And I got a. I got to get him help. So those mycotoxin tests can be really good. They're not necessary. I want to be really clear about that, though. It's not necessary because often you'll find you take a mycotoxin test and your body hasn't started releasing those toxins yet. And so they're, you know, you come up empty. But whatever you can do to document your symptoms and your labs, like blood tests, all of that while you're in the, in the unit is great. But also don't, don't wait to get out. Don't wait, don't, don't like, oh, I've got this doctor's appointment four months away. Like, I'm going to wait to get out. Because, Michael, I will, I will always tell you, prioritize your health first. No matter what, prioritize your health first. Because I don't know if I'm going to be able to get you recovery now or later or when. What I do know is the best thing that you can do for your financial future is to get well. And whatever is good for the case is always going to be secondary to you and your family getting well.

And the other thing is a damage, you know, a lot of damages, right? Personal property damages, all that. Documenting all that stuff is key document, document, document, document.

And if you're getting rid of stuff, make sure you test it first. So, you know, do run a test on the belongings so that you can test that the belongings are contaminated. Then we can clean those lost belongings in the case. But if you didn't test it, it's a lot harder to do that and follow the advice of your mold assessor, right? If your mold assessor says, yeah, you need to get rid of your stuff, then get rid of it. If your mold assessor says, no, you can salvage it this way or that way, then do that. You know, follow the advice of the experts and build a team, Build a really good team of, you know, doctor, assessor. There are good consultants. There are people who can come alongside you. We can come alongside you and kind of help you walk, walk your way through it.

I want people to have, like, expectations of, you know, litigation. You don't exactly get paid the next day. Is that about right?

Yeah. And, you know, I, I put those millions out there, and I, I'm nervous about that because you're not going to get millions of dollars. You're just not. At least, you know, I, I'm aspiring to get you millions of dollars in every case. I think you deserve millions of dollars in every case. But that's not where we are right now with litigation. So your, your award or your settlement is going to depend on the record. Have you continued to get medical treatment? Are you still sick? Right. The great thing is that if you're better than your case is worth less. That's okay. That's. That is okay. Right. We want you to, to get better. And part of getting better is also proving that you were affected, and now that you're out, you're getting better. So it can take a really long time. And I always say I can't guarantee an outcome, but what I can guarantee is that I'm going to leave it all in the field trying, and I'm going to get it done as fast as I can. Because I can't control a lot of things in litigation, but I can control how fast we work. So I want to get your case on file. I want to get a trial date, and then I'm always moving towards that trial date. So I will not let it languish. But my own case, we moved out of our house October of 2020, and we're going to trial in June of 2023. So it takes time. And that's in a case where I pushed it at every step. Right. I have been as, as fast as I could possibly be, and it's still two and a half years.

It's good to have that expectation. You know, it's not, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, right. There's a lot of hard work, a lot of emotional roller coastering and a lot of frustration and time, you know, of course, another, another aspect. So, you know, you always want to look at those things and say, is this worth it? Right. And when you're bringing a case, you're bringing a case because one of two things, one, you are irreparably damaged. Right. And the second thing probably is you know, wanting to do the right thing and hold somebody accountable to help make change.

Yeah, I mean that.

Is there a third thing? I may be missing something. I'll leave it.

Michael, I don't. I think that every. Everyone who's been through this is irreparably damaged in some way. Yeah, Right. Because it changes your genetics. And then you're more susceptible. And the research shows that there were mice that were exposed to Stachybotrys, and then the next time they came back, that cytokine storm happened faster. So it had. Now you're just more susceptible for the rest of your life. Or some people are. I am. So it does change you forever. But I don't want you to think that you can only bring a case if you are super, super, super injured. Because I'll bring all the cases. I'll bring the medium cases, the small cases. I will. Because it's. It's. It's the culmination of cases that's going to make a difference. Right. It's. It's. It's throwing your name in the hat that, yeah, this happened to me, too. And me too. And me, too. And it's taking that second and third and fourth deposition of the same company and saying, we're still here. Again, same thing. Right. And I haven't had the privilege of doing that yet because I'm early. But, man, people know my name in this state now, and sometimes that's uncomfortable. But it's a good thing because I'm not going away. Call the mold assessor next time. Don't paint over it next time. We think that they will change their practices if we hold them accountable over and over and over again.

How do people find you to work with you? I know you mentioned your website and you said you had a thousand people call that one time, and it sounds like it may be difficult for you to try a thousand cases at once.

Yeah, so I am really busy, but I'm building capacity and I'm building capacity around the country. So like I said, if you know a lawyer who wants to do these cases, I can show them how. I don't think they're complicated. I think the science is absolutely there. And because there are no other lawyers doing it, you'll have a lot of business in any state. Right. So you can reach out to me at well, Law. There's a contact page there, and we'll get back to you right away. We have an amazing intake director, and she'll give you direction whether we can help you or not. We'll Send you the resources that I wish that I had had. Because that's, you know, I couldn't even get lawyers to call me back. Like, the offices wouldn't even call me back. And I was a. I was a lawyer myself, and I thought, how do you get help around here? You know? And I had. I called this guy, James Coomley, and I use his name on purpose. I don't even use the name of my builder, but I use this guy's name because on his website it says he will only treat mold exposure.

Or.

Only serve mold victims who died. He only does wrongful death from old. And I called him, I texted it. I mean, I left two messages. I emailed like, I got his direct email, never returned my call. And I was like, you know what? He can take all the dead people, and I'm going to help the people who are alive. So anyway, I'm building an army to help the people who are alive. And whether or not I can take your case, I'm going to help you and I'm going to answer your call and I'm going to do what I can for you, and I'm going to try to build up an army. It's going to take time. It's not overnight, but I'm going to try to build up an army around the country that will take these cases because people deserve recovery and we need to change the industry.

You're already doing it. You're already building an army. You're already doing it, and it's only going to get bigger and better from here. Um, it is so undeniably valuable, you know, what you're doing, because as you brought up that in your own case, trying to find an attorney was next to impossible. I get messages all the time, hey, who's an attorney? I sent everyone your way because outside of you, I know very little attorneys that would take these types of cases. And, you know, it's. It's a problem, right? Because, yeah, it seems like everybody came out in the 80s and 90s and swung big and then everybody went back to sleep, you know, in terms of the. The legal field. And people are suffering. Millions of people are suffering.

And. And what's sad is that millions of people are suffering because the legal industry went to sleep because we stopped bringing these cases. Builders just got it. Got a blank slate. Right. They gotta get out of jail free card.

Yeah.

And then they didn't care. And so they, they built houses. I mean, Dear Horton has built houses all along the southeast that have no dehumidifying Right. Because they're building the same houses that they would build in the Northwest. It's, it's. They, they. They haven't cared about indoor air quality because they haven't had to. And we need to make them care again. And the science has only gotten better. So there should be more and more of these cases, in my view. And we just have to go forth and win some. And we, we have. We, we. We have been and we will be and will continue to do it. But we gotta keep at it because it's only, like you said, it's only hitting them with those big verdicts that will make a difference. So we gotta, we gotta get there.

Amazing. Thank you for all that you do. Christina, everyone. You know, if you need to reach her for any sort of legal guidance, well, law is the website. Christina, thanks for all your time today. I know I always continue to learn a great bit when I'm around you, so thank you. I know I've learned something. Hopefully everyone else has learned something things as well. And you know, like I said, everybody should know their rights. I think that's a big thing. Knowing your rights is really important so that you don't become the adverse effect of someone taking advantage of those rights.

Thanks, Michael.