Understanding the Johnson Lawsuit

Frank James Williamson, Junior Editor

The Sewanee Purple will continue reporting on campus mold issues. We’d like to hear from anyone with stories and experiences involving mold in Johnson, other residence halls, or any other campus buildings. Email us at spurple@sewanee.edu.

Eleven Sewanee students are suing the University for the alleged effects suffered as a result of “toxic mold” in Johnson Hall. 

The lawsuit,  filed Sept. 23 and amended last week in state circuit court in Winchester on behalf of seven former Johnson residents and their parents, seeks $35 million for what is alleged as “life-changing illness” and “emotional distress.” On Oct. 3, four more former Johnhson residents and their parents joined the lawsuit.

The students’ lawyers retained a Houston public relations firm specializing in litigation PR to send press releases to news organizations from Nashville to Chattanooga on Sept. 24, prompting a wave of news stories with headlines alleging Sewanee had mold issues that may have made students ill. The same PR firm sent out another release on Monday announcing that more students had joined in what is now a 67-page complaint.

The sudden media attention and dramatic headlines are probably by design, as the students’ lawyers try to influence public opinion with a complaint favoring their side and their allegations before a defendant responds, said Sue DeWalt (C ‘80), a Sewanee graduate and lawyer specializing in civil litigation. 

“You’re always walking a fine line when talking about publicity for a lawsuit, and one of the things that emphasizes that fine line… is that the press release is largely simply quoting the allegations in the complaint,” DeWalt told The Sewanee Purple.

“Most people aren’t going to read through pages and pages, paragraphs and paragraphs of legal allegations. It’s going over 50 pages, and almost 200 separate allegations, so what they do is they put all the exciting allegations up front,” DeWalt said. “You would expect them at times to be a little aggressive and colorful in their pleading… a good complaint, and good litigation is essentially always about storytelling.”

The Purple emailedt Sewanee’s Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Parker Oliver, on Oct. 1 asking for comments about the lawsuit and ensuing media attention. As of midday on Tuesday Oct. 7, Oliver had not responded. Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, Oliver was quoted in The Chattanooga Times Free Press, WSMV 4 and other media as saying the University was aware of the complaint but had not reviewed it and did not comment on pending litigation.

DeWalt said that a “no comment” response to media questions about allegations in a lawsuit  is not uncommon. 

“Sometimes you do what the University did, which was essentially say ‘We don’t comment on pending litigation,’ and sometimes you make a strategic decision to tell your own story, very carefully, very much constrained by legal ethics,” she said. ”You try to get your own view out there so that as people Google they have another recite of the story… you try to counter the sway that those kinds of articles have upon potential jurors,” Sue DeWalt said. “I’ve been involved in other pieces of litigation that have ended up in news reports, including one case where there was literally a news crew parked outside of my client’s establishment. It can get pretty dicey pretty quickly, and I assume that the University is sophisticated and has sophisticated counsel, and this was a strategic decision not to comment.”

Residential hall mold problems at U.S. colleges and universities are not uncommon… In 2018, an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education indicated that students had filed a lawsuit against the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, following the evacuation of a large residence hall. 586 students were forced to move out of Laurel Hall dormitory due to a mold infestation. In the article a UTK vice chancellor for facilities services stated that mold in dorms had been “a bigger issue and happening more places this year than in quite a while.” In the same article it is stated that Indiana University at Bloomington was facing a mold outbreak and lawsuit after 150 students were displaced.

The lawsuit alleges that mold problems at Johnson Hall date back to at least January of 2024. It  cites an article in The Purple, in an opinion piece critiquing Residential Life in February 2024; that column stated that a room in the dorm had to be evacuated and its residents were  “told they could no longer reside there, even though the mold had been present for weeks before break.”

In early October 2024, renewed complaints about mold making occupants sick and testing by an outside lab prompted the University to evacuate Johnson. In meetings with the hall’s 56 residents and their parents, University officials blamed a convergence of unusual factors:  unusually heavy rainfall left by the remnants of a hurricane, a partially blocked air duct that sucked in rain-dampened air and malfunctioning remote humidity sensor that failed to alert Facilities Management as humidity reached the level at which mold can grow. Students from Johnson were moved into temporary housing and after then-closed McCrady Hall was partially renovated and reopened, many were ultimately housed there for the remainder of the fall 2024 semester. Johnson was reopened in the spring 2025 semester after being cleaned by a mold remediation firm and partially renovated.

The lawsuit filed against Sewanee alleged that Johnson residents in the fall of 2024 suffered headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, coughing, sleeplessness and missing class due to illness. 

In February, about the same time that the Purple published a Johnson update about the hall being renovated and reopened to students, the Austin, Texas, law firm leading the Sewanee lawsuit, Just Well Law,  created a page on their website inviting parents and students from Sewanee to learn more about a potential lawsuit “on behalf of residents who have been harmed by toxic mold and unsafe housing conditions in the dorms.” 

The Austin law firm’s website also advertises its lawyers as specialists in “environmental toxin cases.” The website also notes that it has filed similar lawsuits this year against Ohio State University, involving 30 students alleging mold-related illnesses from conditions in a dorm, and St. Edwards University in Austin, on behalf of a single student with alleged mold-related illness caused by University housing.

The Austin lawyers included a local law firm in Winchester, Davis & Davis, in their Sewanee suit.  DeWalt said that, too, is not uncommon in efforts to win damages in civil litigation. 

“This is a state court action. All politics is local, as are a lot of judicial proceedings, and you want somebody who is an experienced local lawyer with boots on the ground who can advise you about judge, local practice and customs, and if the case gets to trial, which is not usual anymore, but if it goes to trial, is there to help you pick the jury,” DeWalt said. “There are counties in western Pennsylvania where you simply even as a Pennsylvania lawyer would not attempt to practice law without a local lawyer, because the Bar is tight and collegial, and they’re not necessarily welcoming or receptive of outside lawyers.”

DeWalt notes that above all this lawsuit provides an interesting look at how attorneys craft complaints.  

“I lived in Johnson. I loved living in Johnson, but I think what they’re really doing is telling a story. You begin to see other things… sort of the weaving in of the affluence of the University, which I personally think is an unfair characterization, but it’s nonetheless pretty front-and-center in what they’re pleading,” DeWalt said. “You can see how they have in an interesting way taken the University motto of Ecce Quam Bonum and tried to weaponize it. I’m not in any way criticizing what the plaintiffs’ lawyers have done. I’m pointing out that this, for liberal arts graduates in particular, is a very interesting read, and a great opportunity to read critically and carefully about what’s being alleged.”

“Typically a case like this will get to trial in a year to two, depending upon how quickly and aggressively each side goes after that,” she added. “I think it will be at least a year and probably not more than two. It’s gonna go quiet, as the lawyers get to work to figure out what can be proven and what cannot be proven, and where the evidence really stands, and then there will be some kind of a resolution. Again, I’d be surprised if it went to trial, simply because the costs and risks are too high.”