Roger Pardieck: Floyd jury awards $23 million in lawsuit against apartment complex
By Harold J. Adams
hjadams@courier-journal.com
In a lawsuit filed 14 years ago, a Floyd County jury has awarded $23.5 million to a New Albany family
for severe illnesses to two children caused by a pesticide that was sprayed in their Prestwick Square
apartments unit in the mid-1990s.
The award came Thursday in a trial that didn’t begin until Aug. 17, following years of motions and
delays. It is expected to be appealed.
Richard Mullineaux, the attorney for Prestwick Square, did not return a call Friday to his office.
Todd and Cynthia Ebling and their children, Christina, then 2 years old, and Alex, then 6 months old,
moved into Prestwick Square in February 1994. Soon, both children began to suffer seizures and
other neurological problems.
According to the Eblings’ attorneys, the children’s problems were caused by exposure to Creal-O, a
chemical based on the pesticide Diazinon. The Environmental Protection Agency banned the
pesticide from residential use in 2004.
Roger Pardieck, the attorney who filed the suit for the Eblings, said the chemical was applied in the
wrong way, even though it was legal for residential use at the time.
“There was more applied than should have been applied, and it was applied in a careless manner,”
Pardieck said.
He said a “crack and crevice” application of the pesticide should have been made. Instead, he said, it
was applied “on the baseboards, ran down onto the carpeting (and) splashed up on the wall
coverings. That’s a misapplication.”
Christina Ebling, now 20, is developmentally no more than a 2-year-old, her mother said during an
interview Friday.
“She can feed herself, but that’s about it,” Cynthia Ebling said. “She can’t dress herself, undress
herself, brush her teeth, brush her hair, shower herself—basically everything but feeding has to be
done by somebody else.”
Alex, now 17 and a student in the 11th grade, has athletic physical ability but is delayed academically
and socially, his parents said.
“He’s a big follower and really doesn’t know how to distrust anybody or doesn’t know how to judge
somebody whether they’re good or bad,” said Todd Ebling.
The Eblings divorced during the years it took to bring the case to trial, and they now share the care of
Christina and Alex.
“It’s been devastating,” Cynthia Ebling said of the effect on her and her ex-husband. “Our lives will
never be the same.”
She said their son and daughter “haven’t been the same since the first seizure.”
Christina slept on a metal daybed when they moved into the apartment, her mother said, and it would
start to squeak at night.
“That would wake us up, the squeaking,” Cynthia Ebling said. “She would wake up moaning and she
would convulse.”
At the same time, Alex was also showing symptoms, his parents said. Still, they said, it took months
before doctors diagnosed the problem and experts traced it to the chemical.
The Eblings moved out of the apartment in January 1995 before their lease ended.
The Floyd Superior Court jury that heard the case, with Judge Susan Orth presiding, awarded
$500,000 each to Todd and Cynthia Ebling, $16 million to Christina Ebling and $6.5 million to Alex
Ebling.
Projected future medical costs for Christina are about $14 million, Pardieck and co-counsel Matthew
Schad said. But they said it would likely be a long time before any money changes hands because of
anticipated appeals.
Prestwick Square apartments still operates in New Albany under the same ownership as when the
Eblings lived there, the couple’s lawyers said.
“I just hope that this is a wake-up call for some people and that nobody ever should have to go
through this,” Cynthia Ebling said.
