A lawsuit against a suburban heating and cooling company claims a 90-year-old woman’s South Side home was 150 degrees inside when she died of heat stress nearly two weeks ago.
Leroy Griffin Jr. filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of his relative Mary Griffin, who was discovered dead in her home on the night of April 17.
The day before, Care-N-Comfort Inc., based in Posen, installed a boiler, a new water heater and a new thermostat in Griffin’s home in the 9500 block of South Winston, according to the suit.
The next night, first responders found Griffin, 90, dead in her home. The temperature inside was about 150 degrees, though the thermostat read 76 degrees, the suit claims.
According to the suit, the inside of the home was so hot that the glue affixing the ceiling tiles to the bathroom ceiling melted, causing the tiles to fall to the floor.
An autopsy found Griffin died of hypertensive heart disease, and heat stress due to a furnace malfunction was listed as a contributing factor, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Her death was ruled an accident.
The three-count lawsuit claims wrongful death, negligence and and strict liability on the part of Care-N-Comfort Inc. and PB Heat, LLC., which manufactured the boiler. It seeks at least $150,000 in damages.
A message left at Care-N-Comfort, Inc. was not returned Tuesday evening.
