Lawsuit Reveals Horrifying Negligence At Hotel Where Couple Died Of Carbon Monoxide

Back in 2011, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, an elderly couple from Longview, Washington; died in their sleep at the Best Western Plus Blue Ridge Plaza in Boone, North Carolina. It turned out they ingested a lethal dose of carbon monoxide. The source? Fumes from an swimming pool heater that had not only been improperly and illegally converted from outdoor to indoor use, but was also severely out of maintenance. Now the Jenkinses’ son and daughter are suing the hotel’s former owner, the hotel’s management company, the company that converted the heater from propane to natural gas, Best Western International, and several others. They contend that a staggering litany of negligence resulted in their parents’ deaths.

Kris Jenkins Hauschildt and Doug Jenkins (courtesy Longview Daily News)
Kris Jenkins Hauschildt and Doug Jenkins (courtesy Longview Daily News)

Doug Jenkins and Kris Jenkins Hauschildt filed their suit on Monday. The nominal lead plaintiff is Walter Hart, who is the administrator of the Jenkins estate. However, Doug and Kris are the driving force behind this action. They contend that their parents would still be alive if their room had a carbon monoxide detector. In one of many horrifying sections of their complaint, Doug and Kris claim that despite carbon monoxide-related deaths and poisonings at hotels across the country–including no fewer than four incidents since 2008 at Best Western hotels–Best Western International willfully refused to require its franchisees to install carbon monoxide detectors in every room until 2013. It took the Jenkinses’ deaths, as well as one more death and a near-death in the Boone hotel and the poisoning of several guests at a Best Western in Pennsylvania later that summer, to get Best Western officials to mandate carbon monoxide detectors in every guest room.

The lawsuit also alleges that in 2011, the pool heater was moved from another hotel operated by Appalachian Property Management, which managed the Best Western and several other hotels in Boone. Rather than use licensed heating contractors, Appalachian Property Management simply had its own maintenance workers install it, and never obtained the permits required for such work. They also ignored numerous safety recommendations from the heater’s manufacturer, including the installation of carbon monoxide detectors and an adequate ventilation system. The heater was also converted from propane to natural gas even though the manufacturer specifically stated it was not designed for such use. When a power venter intended to draw carbon monoxide out of the building failed, hotel employees simply bypassed it rather than repair it. Further investigation revealed numerous openings in a fire wall intended to separate guest rooms from common areas, and that a heating contractor who inspected the heater ignored numerous defects in the heater that were almost certainly present well before 2011.

Doug and Kris said they suspected that their parents had been killed by something in the air almost immediately. They said they saw a rusted heating vent outside the hotel–corroded, as it turned out, by chlorine and other chemicals stored in the equipment room where the pipe ran. However, they were not prepared for what they described as the “horrifying” conditions of the ventilation system–a problem exacerbated by the natural gas logs in the room’s fireplace. In an emotional press conference, Doug held up a carbon monoxide detector and said that device is all that is necessary to prevent more people from dying the way his parents did. While Best Western now requires all of its franchisees to install detectors in every room, it is one of the few national chains that does so. North Carolina now requires all hotels to have carbon monoxide detectors in certain areas with fossil-fuel burning appliances–but not in every room.

We already know that one other suit is on the way. Two months later, 11-year-old Jeffrey Williams was killed by carbon monoxide while staying in the same room where the Jenkinses died. His mother, Jeannie, nearly died after being without adequate oxygen for over 14 hours. She has permanent damage to her brain, heart, and lungs, and is already suffering cognitive and mobility problems that will only get worse in the years to come. It turned out that hotel officials reopened the room only a month after the Jenkinses died, and that the medical examiner handling the case, Brent Hall, dragged his feet in getting the Jenkinses’ blood tested. When the tests showed both had ingested lethal amounts of carbon monoxide, Hall didn’t tell anyone for a week. As a result, no one knew about those tests until a month after Jeffrey died. The hotel’s manager, Damon Malletere, was indicted last year on three counts of manslaughter for the deaths of the Jenkinses and Jeffrey and one count of inflicting serious bodily injury for poisoning Jeannie. The Williams family has all but announced they will sue, but their attorney says it’s taking longer to draft a complaint due to the larger number of legal issues.

Jenkins attorney Mark Brumbaugh told The (Longview) Daily News that their case will likely go to trial in about a year. However, the negligence displayed here is so outrageous I have to hope that all or most of the defendants have the decency to settle. Malletere would be particularly crazy not to settle; a lot is likely to come out in this trial that won’t play very well with the jury in his criminal trial. If there isn’t a settlement, the only question will be how many zeroes will be in the damages.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.