The Daily Tar Heel

Issue date: 6/12/08 Section: City

Media Credit: DTH File/Julie Turkewitz Two Orange County firefighters move fallen debris from the wreckage that remained after an apartment fire September 30th of last year. The rubble has been cleared, but the effects of the fire still linger.

An Orange County man is suing the property owners and manager of the Carrboro apartment where his mother died in a fire Sept. 30. He claims in the lawsuit that his mother's death "was a direct and proximate result of the negligence" of the landlord.

Juan Arango is the administrator of the estate of his mother, Gloria Inez Suarez. She died when her apartment complex caught fire and spread quickly, killing her and injuring two other residents who jumped from the building.

Arango claims in the lawsuit that if the building had been maintained properly by Colonial Properties Trust and its property manager, Renee Schumacher, the fire would not have spread as rapidly, allowing residents more time to escape safely. The lawsuit also said that if the smoke detectors had been working properly, they would have alerted the residents more quickly.

His attorney, Mark McGrath, said that the building failed inspection by the Carrboro Fire Department on Jan. 4, 2007, and that the landlord failed to correct the problems.

More importantly, he said, the smoke alarms didn't go off and residents weren't alerted until it was too late.

"The smoke alarms didn't function," McGrath said. "We talked to a bunch of the residents over there and none of them recall hearing anything."

But Deputy Fire Chief Trey Mayo of the Carrboro Fire Department said fire alarms were heard by some.

"Some of the residents reported hearing their smoke alarms go off," he said. "I don't know for sure how many went off, but some did report hearing them."

Mayo said the fire report estimated a 28-minute gap between the time the fire started and the time the fire station was notified.

But, this delay could be due to the time of the fire, he said.

"The time of the alarm was 1:59 a.m.," he said. "Lots of residents weren't home because it was too early for students and other folks to be coming back from the bars. And if residents were home, they were probably asleep."

Mayo said that the cause of the fire is unknown, mainly because the fire caused too much destruction. He said that he believes the fire started on the first floor and quickly spread throughout the rest of the building.

"It wasn't burned into oblivion, but it was burned so much that you can't say for sure what caused it," he said. "But it seemed to start on the outside, on the first floor."

In the lawsuit, Arango is seeking $10,000 in damages, which McGrath said is the maximum amount allowed by N.C. state law.

"In North Carolina, you can only ask for $10,000," he said. "But we really haven't crossed that bridge yet. It is hard to put a value on a life, though."

He said that the case is still in its early stages and that the parties involved have waited so long after the incident to file the lawsuit because they "just wanted to make sure everything was in order" before the suit was filed.

Attorney Allen Duncan, who is representing the two residents injured in the fire, said his clients also filed suit against Colonial Properties Trust.

Krisitin Pietrowicz, a former UNC student, and Susan Thorne, a teacher at Chapel Hill High School, filed a joint suit because both sustained debilitating injuries from the fire.

"Both women's legs are severely damaged, along with many other injuries," Duncan said.

He said Pietrowicz's injuries were so bad that she had to withdraw from graduate school.

Thorne's injuries have forced her to take the entire year off on disability leave, Duncan said.

"She has been out on disability but has been trying to get back," he said. "She can't walk, or even get close to walking right now, but she is a very dedicated teacher."

Jim Spahn, a representative for Colonial Properties Trust, said the company has been served with the civil summons.

"We have been served and we are researching," he said. "We are continuing to give our full cooperation to the local authorities as we do so."



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.

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