BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE— A Bradford County jury awarded Deangela Hill, acting on behalf of her 7-year-old son, $650,000 in damages for the boy’s medical conditions resulting from mold in their rental home.
During a two-day trial that ended on Wednesday, July 6, defendant and landlord Charles Jackson told jurors that Hill brought the mold into the Starke home with contaminated furniture and clothing. He added that the fungus grew within the residence because the plaintiff put cardboard in the windows to keep sunlight out of the house and lower her power bill.
Jackson also claimed that many of Hill’s witnesses, who testified about the condition of the residence, were her friends and therefore biased.
Hill wept in the witness box as she described to jurors the confusion and helplessness she felt as her son’s health worsened and the mold within the house appeared to worsen,
“It was to the point that I was bagging my stuff up in bags,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on. I was just trying to save all my stuff. It was bad. I lost everything. I was trying to understand what was going on. I didn’t know. I was a single woman, living there by myself. It was in my icebox. I was storing food in my room because I didn’t know what was going on.”
Hill described the day she decided to leave the residence, which was also her birthday.
“I went into my son’s room, and I pulled his dresser back,” she recalled. “I didn’t know how bad it was. “I pulled his dresser back, and it was covered in mold, and he was living and sleeping in there the whole time. I didn’t realize it was so bad.”
Hill said that when she saw the conditions in her son’s room, she called the boy’s grandparents, who took her son into their home.
Thrown out of the courtroom
Jackson acted as his own lawyer. Circuit Judge Gloria Walker instructed the defendant throughout the proceedings to not talk over witnesses. She also instructed him to ask witnesses questions rather than make his own assertions during testimony, to watch his tone while questioning witnesses, and to only show jurors photos that had been entered into evidence.
At one point, Walker threw Jackson out of the courtroom for chewing gum.
When cross-examining Hill, Jackson accused her of being an opportunist and trying to use the court system to take advantage of him.
“What I was trying to do was protect my children,” Hill shot back. “You don’t even know what you did to us. I’m their mother. I had to think for them. I didn’t want to take it this far with you, but you showed no concern about us. You lied, and you are still lying, and my child is involved.”
