Court documents outline responses to questions in settled bed-bug case
Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Court documents filed in the bedbug lawsuit against Stone Inn's show that the motel employee who sprayed for insects did not buy a pesticide to treat bedbugs before December 2006.
Records also show that the head housekeeper thought bed bugs were an "old wives'tale."
The plaintiff, Rose M. Pagley-Brown, and Stone Inn's settled the lawsuit Feb. 27 for an undisclosed amount of money. The case was settled under a confidentiality agreement.
In December 2006, Brown was allegedly bitten hundreds of times by bedbugs while staying in Room 33 of Stone Inn's. She was staying at the motel while she was undergoing surgery for cancer treatment.
The defendant's responses to the plaintiff's questions were filed Feb. 4, Feb. 5 and Feb. 6 in Benton County Circuit Court.
Responses filed Feb. 6 show that Garnett Honaker was employed at Stone Inn's from June 2001 to June 2007 and sprayed for insects at the motel during that time.
Honaker obtained spray for treating bedbugs after someone from the Health Department came to Stone Inn's but did not buy this spray before December 2006, the responses show.
The motel reportedly had a contract with Orkin, and a company employee would sometimes spray only the even numbered rooms during the monthly visit.
Honaker did not keep a record of the rooms he sprayed or have a record of his duties, according to the responses.
Honaker sprayed rooms about once a week in the spring, summer and fall but about once a month in the winter. Since 2004, he used Ortho Home Defense for pesticide.
Before December 2006, Honaker would not have been able to identify by name a bedbug if he had seen one, the responses show. Also, he would not have been able to identify a brown recluse spider or black widow spider except to know that they were spiders.
In 2005, a woman reported to Honaker that the motel had bedbugs. The complaint was not reported to the motel owner, Bruce Stone, according to the responses. In January 2007, Stone asked Honaker if he could find bedbugs.
In responses filed Feb. 5, head housekeeper Patricia Pell said she thought bedbugs were an old wives'tale.
The Feb. 4 responses show that maid Debbie Mouse received no training about bedbugs when she was hired in November 2005.
The lawsuit was filed March 8, 2007, in Benton County Circuit Court.
Caley Vo represented the 48-room motel, which is at 1150 U. S. Highway 412 West.
Sach D. Oliver represented Brown.
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