Uptown Development Sued Again For Legionnaires Outbreaks: Report

UPPER MANHATTAN, NY — Another round of lawsuits connected to two fatal outbreaks of Legionnairres Disease in Upper Manhattan were filed in New York Supreme Court this month, according to reports.

Nine people who were sickened during a 2018 outbreak of the disease are suing the Sugar Hill Project — an apartment complex city Health Department officials pegged as the source of two outbreaks that year — and the company that installed water cooling towers at the development, the New York Post first reported. The plaintiffs are represented by lawyer Scott Harford, who represents clients in a lawsuit against the apartment complex earlier this year.

Harford's new clients — locals and visitors of New York City — were all hospitalized after contracting Legionnaires' Disease in July and October 2018, the lawyer told the New York Post. Harford claims that the outbreaks were the result of negligence on behalf of the apartment complex and cooling tower company Clarity Water Technologies LLC.

City officials traced the source of two fatal Legionnaires' Disease outbreaks in 2018 to cooling towers at the residential building the Sugar Hill Project on St. Nicholas Avenue near West 155th Street. The outbreaks sickened 59 people, killing two, city Health Department officials said.

The 2018 outbreaks were the first time that one cooling tower has been linked to two separate Legionnaires' Disease outbreaks in the city, health officials said. Moving forward, the city plans to examine the design of the tower, convene a panel of water system engineers to advise the building's owners on properly designing safer towers and introduce stricter cooling tower regulations, officials said.

Read the full NY Post article here.