Secondhand Smoke Trial Extends to 5th Day

On day four in the secondhand smoke trial, shortly after opening, Judge Albert Northrop dismissed the sought by David Schuman in his case against his housing cooperative, Greenbelt Homes, Inc. (GHI), for its failure to prohibit the nuisance created by his townhome neighbors, the Popovics', secondhand smoke.

“It’s a big deal,” Gretchen Overdurff, general manager of GHI, told Patch during the first break after the announcement.

Though the punitive damages were dismissed, Judge Northrop was not willing to dismiss the negligence claim, despite GHI attorneys Michael Goecke and Jason Fisher claiming that the plaintiff had not proven GHI had acted in bad faith while handling Schuman's complaint.

After Judge Northrop's initial decisions, Monday’s trial resumed with the testimony of the defense’s expert witness, Dr. Ronald Gots, a pharmacologist, who is board certified in toxicology.

Gots testified that two experiments conducted on secondhand smoke inside Schuman's home by the plaintiff's expert witness, biophysicist James Repace, recorded levels that were “certainly too low to present a cancer risk and also too low to present an irritant risk.”

He called into question Repace’s work, saying that the nicotine monitor that Repace hung in Schuman’s kitchen for 30 days recorded a level of nicotine, 0.5 micrograms, that equated to the amount found in .000025 of a cigarette.

Although Gots thought the levels recorded were low, Schuman’s attorney J.P. Szymkowicz persisted, asking Gots if the unwanted presence of smoke could be disturbing. Gots admitted that the cigarette smoke smelled by Schuman and the Popovics’ other neighbor, Dorry Ipolito, could be annoying, but he maintained it was not a health risk.

Under further questioning by Szymkowicz, Gots answered that he does not treat patients, has not written articles on secondhand smoke, and that half of what he does for a living includes testifying in court. Furthermore, he answered that, in the last five years, he has testified once for a plaintiff.

In addition, Gots told the court that he had been paid $425 per hour and made at least $30,000 working on this case.

Repace talked to Patch outside of court and said that his experiments were intended to scientifically prove that Schuman had been exposed to secondhand smoke, but not that he was at risk medically due to his exposure.

Once Gots’ testimony concluded, Sylvia Lewis took the stand in the late afternoon. Lewis had been a member of the complaints panel and GHI Board when Schuman’s 2009 complaint was heard.

GHI decided not to give Schuman a formal hearing after he presented his case before the member complaints panel, according to Lewis, because the panel felt there was no solution amenable to both parties — as the Popovics’ wouldn’t quit smoking at the time and Schuman only wanted them to stop.

“Given the intractability of both parties, I don’t know what else the board or the panel could have done,” Lewis said. 

In 1997, after Schuman filed his original complaint about the Popovics’ secondhand smoke coming into his townhome, GHI sealed Schuman’s and the Popovics’ townhomes. But after Schuman had major renovations done to his townhome in 2008, the smoke problem came back, according to Lewis.

“My conclusion was the renovations had an effect on the effectiveness of the seals that had been put in place by GHI,” Lewis said.

Lewis said that Schuman was not interested in further sealing because he told the panel he didn’t think it would be effective, which she said left the board with no further options for solving the problem.

“We tried to treat everybody equally,” said Lewis. “We couldn’t say the Popovics couldn’t smoke because then we’d have to make the rule for everybody.”

She testified that if Schuman had not been happy with the complaint panel’s decision, he could have collected 100 member signatures to hold a special meeting; could have raised the issue with the board during an open session; could have brought it to the membership at the annual meeting; or, with 10 signatures, could have petitioned the board to have them address the problem.

When Patch caught up with Schuman outside the courtroom to ask why he didn’t use any of the measures that Lewis testified about, Schuman responded that had written GHI asking for a formal hearing. He said they wrote back saying that was only possible after an informal hearing, which they said they weren’t going to give him.

“I thought that was it, that was the end of the process,” Schuman said.

Darko Popovic was the first person to leave the courtroom after Judge Albert Northrop adjourned for the day.

“I think I am going crazy,” Popovic said as he exited.

Though originally scheduled to end Monday, by day’s end, defense witness, Tokey Boswell, current president of the GHI Board, had not testified and closing arguments remained to be heard. Judge Northrop announced the trial would resume on Tuesday for its fifth day.

Still standing is the $300,000 in compensatory damages being requested by Schuman.

The trial will resume at 9 a.m. at the Prince George’s County Circuit Court.