Toxic tort claim; Denial of the defendant's post-judgment motion for JNOV and for a new trial as to whether plaintiffs presented expert testimony mold caused their personal injuries; Roberts v. Saffell; Moore v. Detroit Entm't, LLC;  Sniecinski v. BCBSM; Amerisure Ins. Co. v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co.; Zantel Mktg. Agency v. Whitesell Corp.; Henry v. Dow Chem. Co.; Case v. Consumers Power Co.; Haliw v. City of Sterling Heights; Skinner v. Square D. Co.; Holton v. A+ Ins. Assoc. Inc.; Gass v. Marriott Hotel Servs., Inc.; Damages; Whether the trial court properly allowed testimony from plaintiff-Mario about settlement negotiations and allowed him to refresh his memory from the typewritten list of the contents of his condominium; Craig v. Oakwood Hosp.; Barnett v. Hidalgo; Farm Credit Servs. of MI's Heartland, PCA v. Weldon; Moncrief v. Detroit; Whether Mario's claim he lost contents worth $75,000 was competent, based on hearsay, and objected to by defendant; Marietta v. Cliffs Ridge, Inc.; Grimes v. Michigan Dep't of Transp.; Daniel v. McNamara

The trial court properly denied the defendant's post-judgment motion for JNOV and for a new trial concerning whether plaintiffs presented expert testimony regarding mold being the cause of their personal injuries. Plaintiffs and their two young children lived at a condominium complex. Defendant lived next-door. Both units shared a foundation, walls, an attic, and a plumbing stack. In December, 2004 defendant left her condominium to go to Florida and did not return until May 22, 2005. While she was gone, her hot water heater ruptured. When she returned home, her condominium was infested with mold. Plaintiffs' children became ill and following their removal from the condominium, their health began to slowly improve. Plaintiffs claimed defendant's negligence caused their illnesses and mental and emotional anguish. Defendant urged the court to adopt the requirement in order to prove causation in a toxic tort case, a plaintiff must show both the alleged toxin is capable of causing injuries like those suffered by the plaintiff in human beings subjected to the same exposure as the plaintiff, and the toxin was the cause of the plaintiff's injury. She urged the court to hold direct expert testimony was required to establish the causal link, not inferences. The court declined to adopt this requirement. There is no published Michigan case law on this subject. Here, as in Gass, defendant did not submit any scientific evidence the mold in her condominium could not have cause plaintiffs' injuries. She speculated the children's illness was caused by a virus, because at one point the children's doctor treated them for a virus. However, she offered no scientific evidence a virus caused the children's illnesses. The evidence submitted by plaintiffs was the children were healthy before winter 2005. At the same time as the flood and subsequent mold growth in defendant's condominium, both children began experiencing a dramatic decline in health. They suffered from coughing, wheezing, vomiting, lack of oxygen, nosebleeds, and diarrhea. Their medical problems required numerous trips to the hospital ER and to their doctor's office. The children's pediatrician, and their grandmother confirmed the sequence of events. The court held this was not a complicated case - the children were sick, the children were removed from the home, the mold was discovered, and the children recovered. Testimony established extremely high levels of mold can cause the types of symptoms suffered by the children. The court further held it did not take an expert to conclude under these circumstances, defendant more likely than not was responsible for plaintiffs' injuries. Here, there was ample circumstantial evidence to "facilitate reasonable inferences of causation, not mere speculation." Affirmed.