Legal Information and Resources

The plaintiffs in the Kiddie Kollege class action won victory today thanks to Jim Pettit and Pamela Lee of the Locks Law Firm, and counsel from several other firms. Jim Pettit was the Court-Appointed Lead Counsel. The class sought medical monitoring and were not seeking personal injury damages. (more…)

The long-awaited trial for the children of Kiddie Kollege is finally here. Partner, Jim Pettit, is the court-appointed Lead Counsel for plaintiffs, who are members of a class of the children (and their parents and faculty) who attended Kiddie Kollege Daycare in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey. The daycare was in a building formerly a thermometer factory, and it was heavily contaminated (sometimes 40 times, or more, than the federal standard) with mercury. Mercury can become vapor even at room temperature and this metal, when inhaled, enters the brain and the central nervous system. Mr. Pettit and his co-counsel seek medical monitoring for the class members. That is, they seek to have the defendants financially support a court-supervised fund for testing of the central nervous system and the immune system. The trial will be a bench trial (not a jury trial) conducted before the Honorable James Rafferty, in Woodbury.

The defendants moved for summary judgment on numerous issues. The government defendants (the State of New Jersey, the County of Gloucester, and the Township of Franklin) argued that they were not liable factually and in any event they could not be held liable because as government entities they could not be sued under the Tort Claims Act. The other defendants argued that they were not liable as a matter of law. Defendants also moved to preclude each and every one of plaintiffs’ experts from testifying. Finally, they moved to de-certify the class actions. The judge denied the motions and ruled that the case is proceeding to trial. The defendants then moved for a stay in order to appeal which was denied.

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently interviewed partner, Jim Pettit, for a breaking news story arising from mercury contamination at a daycare center in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey. Mr. Pettit is the court-appointed Lead Counsel in several class actions concerning Kiddie Kollege Daycare. In 2006 the state closed the daycare center upon learning that the children and were exposed to very high levels of mercury vapor. The daycare used to be a thermometer factory, and that was the source of the mercury contamination. On Friday, April 30, 2010, Mr. Pettit gained access to photographs of documents which had been left behind 4 years ago inside the building. The state had placed the documents inside a plastic bag when the building was razed and when the state then tested the air inside the plastic bag it found mercury levels that were too high to allow the lawyers in the litigation to touch the actual documents themselves. The state decided to photograph the documents and only then the photographs, not the documents themselves, were allowed to be viewed by Mr. Pettit. The NJ DEP spent about $700,000 cleaning up the site. Mr. Pettit represents a class of babies and children who attended Kiddie Kollege and is seeking payment for medical monitoring (surveillance) for the children. Trial is set for the fall of 2010.

Partner, Jim Pettit, was quoted in the September 12, 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer about his argument to Judge James Rafferty that defendants in the Kiddie Kollege Daycare Center mercury poisoning class action should not be permitted to obtain the medical, psychological and educational records of the children (and their parents) who attended the daycare center in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey. (more…)