Orange Apartments Owner Sued Over Alleged Asbestos Violations

At least 75 workers have sued the owner of an Orange apartment complex, alleging that they were forced to remove asbestos-laden flooring without proper safety equipment and were not alerted to the presence of toxic mold and lead paint during a renovation project.

The class-action lawsuit, which seeks $100 million in damages, was filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises and its affiliates. In it, the plaintiffs estimate that, by hiring untrained manual laborers to work on the Knolls complex in Orange and apartments near Seattle, the company was able to save nearly $3 million.

The lawsuit also alleges that supervisors with Forest City Enterprises and Red Line Construction instructed the workers to dispose of the hazardous materials illegally, in a municipal landfill.

“Their actions are inexcusable,” Kevin Senn, an attorney representing the workers, said Tuesday. “The conditions under which our clients were forced to work are outrageous. And now we have a bunch of people scared to death that they’re going to die of cancer.”

The workers, who “made their living moving from job to job and paycheck to paycheck, . . . could not afford to lose a job prematurely,” according to the lawsuit, and were forced to comply with their supervisors’ orders or be terminated. In exchange for lower wages, the employees were also encouraged to live on site, further exposing them to asbestos fibers and mold spores that infested the buildings, the lawsuit states.

“This proved to be hazardous to their health and well-being,” Senn said. “They weren’t given even the simplest breathing masks to wear.”

The employees were assured that protective equipment was not needed for the work they were doing in Orange, Senn said.

According to the lawsuit, the workers on the 18-month-long project were instructed to “sweep the fine, white dust that resulted from this work and covered the interiors of the units into piles, creating clouds of asbestos dust in the units where they were working.”

The workers have an increased risk of cancer, Senn said, and may have incurred damages that will exceed $1 million each over the course of their lifetimes, including medical expenses and lost income and earning capacity. Several of the workers have already suffered rashes and experienced seizures since completing the job, he said.

The 260-room Orange complex was renovated in 1995.

Times wire services contributed to this report.