A teacher's husband is claiming in a lawsuit that the construction of a swimming pool at the high school where she taught contributed to her death.
Videos by Wide Open Country
Pool Construction Was Next to the Teacher's Classroom
Judith Van Fleet died on Aug. 12, 2024, at age 74. According to the Daily Mail, her death certificate lists respiratory failure and hypoxic encephalopathy as the immediate causes of death.
Her husband, Edwin Van Fleet, filed a lawsuit on Aug. 11 claiming Judith developed health complications after the San Luis Coastal Unified School District hired the company Nadar to build a new pool at Morro Bay High School, where she taught for nearly 25 years.
Work on the project began in the summer of 2016. The classroom where Judith taught was 'located immediately adjacent to decedent's classroom,' according to the lawsuit.
The filing also claims that the project's Air Pollution Control District recommended that construction be avoided while school was in session.
However, the suit states that Nadar continued work while Judith taught, exposing her to diesel emissions and toxic construction dust for nearly three weeks. It also claims that the company knew about Judith's complaints.
Van Fleet Had Difficulty Breathing
The lawsuit says that during construction, Judith experienced difficulty breathing, sinus congestion, headaches, a hoarse voice, weakness, memory loss, and cognitive decline. She allegedly had "trouble remembering students' names and difficulty following her lesson plan," which the suit links to the construction exposure.
Judith then visited a MedStop clinic and received oxygen and a rescue inhaler. She then returned to work the next day. Her symptoms worsened in the following months, leading to her early retirement in 2017.
The filing says several doctors evaluated Judith. A pulmonologist diagnosed her with occupational asthma, vasomotor rhinitis and hypersensitivity to dust. She also visited a neurologist, who diagnosed her with a persistent cognitive disorder and recurrent headaches.
A neuropsychological evaluation uncovered "severe global cognitive deficits, including impairments in memory, language, visuospatial skills, concentration, processing speed, reasoning, naming, math calculation, and verbal initiation."
Before she died in 2024, Judith was "immobile, bedbound, incontinent, unable to speak, and required 24-hour caregiving."
In addition to wrongful death, the suit seeks damages for strict liability failure to warn, strict liability design defect, loss of consortium and a survival action.
