NCSU seeks dismissal of Poe Hall lawsuit

North Carolina State University is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a dozen plaintiffs against the university related to health problems stemming from Poe Hall. The suit accuses NCSU of “deliberate indifference” about the impact of harmful PCBs in the now-closed building.

The same group of plaintiffs and NCSU have filed separate suits against Monsanto because of the company’s alleged role in producing materials used in Poe Hall’s construction.

The plaintiffs in the suit against the university are “faculty, staff, students, and others who spent substantial time inside Poe Hall.” Three plaintiffs died in 2024 or 2025 and are represented by their estates.

The suit against NCSU makes a “Corum claim.” Plaintiffs allege a violation of their state constitutional rights. The 1992 precedent case Corum v. University of North Carolina allows that type of suit against a government agency under certain circumstances.

“Plaintiffs have not stated any colorable constitutional claim because they ‘fail to demonstrate that they have suffered the deprivation of any right protected by the Constitution,’” NCSU’s lawyers wrote Friday in a motion to dismiss the suit. “Rather, Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries sound in negligence and workers’ compensation, not in violations of constitutional rights, and, according to the Amended Complaint, the alleged source of this injury is NC State’s alleged failure to warn and protect Plaintiffs from exposure to contamination.”

The plaintiffs are asserting tort or workers’ compensation claims, not constitutional claims, NCSU argued. “Any assertion that NC State’s alleged conduct rises to a constitutional level is not grounded in fact or law,” the university’s lawyers wrote.

“Here, Plaintiffs (who were students and/or employees at NC State) have adequate state law remedies under the Workers’ Compensation Act and/or the State Tort Claims Act,” the court filing continued. “Plaintiffs may not bypass those remedies by attempting to recast their allegations as direct constitutional claims under Corum.”

The former NCSU students and employees could have filed their claims with the North Carolina Industrial Commission, the university argued.

“While the North Carolina legislature has expressly waived sovereign immunity for workers’ compensation claims and tort claims by enacting the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act and the State Tort Claims Act that allow such claims to be brought in the Industrial Commission, sovereign immunity bars claims against NC State for tort and workers’ compensation claims asserted in Superior Court,” NCSU lawyers wrote.

“Because these adequate state remedies exist, Plaintiffs fail to state a valid Corum claim, and the Amended Complaint should be dismissed,” the motion to dismiss continued.

The plaintiffs filed suit against the university on Jan. 16.

“This case is about deliberate indifference,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote last month. “The Deliberate indifference of a state actor – North Carolina State University (‘NCSU’). As a state actor, NCSU owed the highest duty to those who trusted it most – students, faculty, staff, children and the public – to protect rights solemnly granted to them by the Constitution of the State of North Carolina.”

Poe Hall “was a place where graduate students would dedicate their lives, not to making money, but to teaching the next generation of leaders and innovators,” according to the suit against NCSU. “Poe Hall provided a source of identity and belonging. It was a place where everyone’s blood ran Wolfpack red; many professors taught there for decades.”

“Poe Hall is also a building contaminated from the start with polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs), some of the most toxic chemicals known to man; so toxic that the Environmental Protection Agency banned their manufacture in 1979 due to their carcinogenic properties. PCBs were everywhere in Poe Hall,” the suit continued.

Built in 1971 before the federal ban on PCBs, Poe Hall was constructed with materials containing the chemicals. Environmental testing in both 2023 and 2024 found PCB levels in the building’s HVAC system materials that exceeded EPA standards. 

The university closed the building in 2023.

“NCSU seeks dismissal of Poe Hall lawsuit” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.