She's baaaaack...Betty Cox returns with law degree to fight toxic
mold in schools
Emily Peters / The Town Talk, Alexandria,
Louisiana
Posted on
July 30, 2003
A school
secretary is suing the Rapides Parish School Board with the help of former
school superintendent Betty Cox.
Cox, now a Baton Rouge
lawyer, is representing Peggy Bergeron in her lawsuit that claims toxic mold in
her office at the Rapides
Motivational Center made her ill.
Cox served as Rapides Parish school superintendent from 1994 to 1998 before she
left the district with a $1.7 million settlement after legal strife with School
Board members.
Cox went on to study law at the Louisiana State University School of Law and now
works for the Walton J. Barnes, II, professional law firm in Baton Rouge.
In her motion, Bergeron claims a moldy ceiling tile over her desk has caused a
variety of illnesses, including "severely aggravated gastritis, excruciating
epigastric and abdominal pain, persistent cough, severe headaches, skin rash,
lung infection, breathing difficulties, itching and fatigue," according to the
lawsuit.
Bergeron, who has worked for the school system since 1976, said district
maintenance staff replaced moldy ceiling tiles a few times in response to her
complaints, but the mold never was eliminated.
Bergeron sought Cox as her lawyer though the two had never interacted much
before.
"I just knew her all those years as my superintendent and I was impressed,"
Bergeron said. "I heard she finished law school, and I thought, who better? She
knows the ins and outs of this school system. She is very fair."
Cox could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Bergeron also filed for an injunction to keep the School Board from tampering
with her office before it can be tested for evidence of toxic mold. The judge
scheduled a court date for the injunction on Aug. 18 at 9:30 a.m.
Bergeron said she hired RTC, an indoor air quality testing company from Baton
Rouge, to evaluate the mold from her ceiling. She showed paperwork that showed
RTC identified the fungus as stachybotrys, a mold commonly found to cause
illness.
She said she never had allergy or sinus problems before she started working at
the Truancy Center last year.
Cox's relationship with the School Board deteriorated shortly after she was
hired in 1994. She ordered an investigation into board members' use of a school
system telephone line for personal and long distance telephone calls. The board
suspended her but she was reinstated by federal court order eight days later.
She then sued most of the board members.
The legal wrangling continued until Jan. 3, 1998, when the board agreed to pay Cox $1.7 million in exchange for her
resignation.
The Truancy Center was
terminated in April's budget cuts, including Bergeron's secretarial position.
However, Bergeron has received no personal notification of the changes, and she
signed a contract earlier this summer to work somewhere in the school system in
the fall.
Two years ago, school district officials quarantined parts of Mary Goff
Elementary to clear the school of toxic mold. A less-dangerous mold also was
found at North
Bayou Rapides Elementary School last summer.
|
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