Valley Fever Lawsuit
Our office is currently litigating two cases where our clients contracted Valley Fever. The first case involves a lawsuit against the State of California as a result of Caltrans failure to warn the plaintiffs of the risk of contracting Valley Fever while digging and disturbing soil in Kern County. In this case 7 clients from the bay area were hired to perform excavation and earth moving as part of an improvement project along a state highway in Kern County. All 7 workers developed disseminated Valley Fever within two weeks of beginning work as a result of exposure to Coccidioides fungus which lives in the soil in certain areas. Kern County has the highest rate of Valley Fever of all counties in the State of California and the area where plaintiffs were infected has the highest rate of infection in Kern County. Our clients were unaware of the risks of Valley Fever and were unaware of the need to take special precautions, including wearing respiratory protection, to prevent contracting Valley Fever while performing earth-moving activities in Kern County.
Our other case involves a woman who lived in Contra Costa County adjacent to a tract of agricultural land that was being developed into a residential housing project. Our client was diagnosed with disseminated Valley Fever shortly after earth-moving activities behind her fence as part of the development released substantial amounts of dust into the air.
There are national, state and local regulations which are intended to protect the public and which require that specific precautions be used to suppress dust during earth-moving activities. These precautions can include sufficient watering of the site to prevent the escape of dust onto neighboring properties, the use of chemicals or agricultural products to stabilize the soil, the wetting of earth being moved, the washing of trucks moving dirt, using rock or gravel to reduce dust created by trucks, covering truck beds that are transporting soil, covering stock piles of earth, the use of fences, limiting the time and location of earth-moving or stock piling activities, to name a few.
The risk of contracting Valley Fever can be substantially reduced if those persons who are engaged in earth-moving in areas were Valley Fever is known to exist, utilize respiratory protection during the work and persons outside of the work can be protected when persons responsible for earth-moving take the necessary precautions to keep dust from being released into the air and onto neighboring properties.
Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding this information.
