Eight Lawsuits Filed Over Failed Vermont Heating System

Eight lawsuits have been filed against companies involved with the heating system that malfunctioned at the Redstone Apartments near the University of Vermont in January, 2005, killing one person and sickening others.

The lawsuits target as many as 10 companies, including the maker of a pipe that malfunctioned, the manufacturer of the apartment complex’s heating boiler, the landlord and firms involved in the construction of the building, its heating system and the natural gas used to fuel it.

Earlier this month a court hearing on the cases was attended by 19 lawyers. Lawyers for two of the student tenants sickened said the two had reached settlements with the defendants in their cases.

One of the pending lawsuits, filed in 2006 by the estate of Jeff Rodliff, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after incident, alleges Stephen Bartlett, the president of a Williston heating company, knew enough about a federal recall of plastic vent pipe to have it replaced in his own home in 1999. But he didn’t require the same fix for the student apartment complex serviced by his firm.

Reports say a boiler in Building 3 of the Redstone complex misfired, causing a section of the faulty pipe to be dislodged from an elbow joint, sending carbonmonoxide fumes into the four apartments above.

The Plexvent vent pipe was the subject of a federal Consumer Product Safety Commission recall in 1998 after the commission learned of problems with the pipe’s durability and determined it was “a deadly threat to consumers.”