Suit alleges owner at fault in Butler apartment carbon monoxide poisoning deaths
The lack of maintenance at a now-condemned apartment building in Butler resulted in the carbon monoxide poisoning death of a man in January 2025, according to a lawsuit filed against the building owner.
The sister of Thomas John Reges, who was 62, filed the suit last week in Butler County Common Pleas Court seeking unspecified damages in excess of $35,000 from the owner of the building at 109 College St., Douglas Gerzina, of Mars.
Reges and two other people in the building Wendy Schettig, 48, of Butler and Jimmy Anderson, 69, of Virginia, all died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the building on Jan. 7, according to the Butler County coroner’s office. All three deaths were ruled accidental.
Reges’ sister, Mary Ann Harding, of North Carolina, claims in the suit her brother and two other tenants’ deaths were due to the building owner’s failure to address maintenance issues.
“Despite defendant Gerzina knowing of the risks associated with carbon monoxide gas and having been made aware of problems with the hot water heater, defendant Gerzina failed to properly install, repair and/or maintain, or have a licensed professional install, repair and/or maintain the hot water heater, furnace, detectors vents, flues and/or chimney,” according to the suit.
A few days before Jan. 7, another tenant was treated at Butler Memorial Hospital after complaining of dizziness and difficulty standing. A different tenant was treated after complaining of feeling confused and weak, according to the suit.
Those two tenants told Gerzina they discovered a leak in the hot water tank. Gerzina responded and replaced a hose as well as a burst pipe. The hot water heater had been improperly installed and a chimney was improperly maintained and was crumbling, according to the suit.
A city ordinance requires a carbon monoxide detector on each occupied floor of a building and a state law requires carbon monoxide detectors in the vicinity of bedrooms and fossil fuel burning heaters and hot water heaters, but the building had the detectors outside on the front porch, according to the suit.
Gerzina owed Reges the protections afforded by the Implied Warranty of Habitability required under the Pennsylvania Landlord-Tenant Right Act and the city’s landlord/tenant relations ordinance, according to the suit.
The suit claims carbon monoxide detectors should be hard-wired directly into a building’s electrical system.
Gerzina did not file a rental occupancy report or property condition form with the city as is required by the ordinance, according to the suit. The city condemned the building following the deaths.
As an optometrist, Gerzina should have known allowing carbon monoxide gas to leak and go undetected in the building was likely to cause a high risk of danger, including the risk of death, to his tenants, according to the suit.
The suit contains one count of survival action negligence, gross negligence, carelessness and recklessness.
Gerzina could not be reached for comment.
Paul Wolf, one of the tenants treated at the hospital, told the Butler Eagle in an interview later that month he stepped outside after feeling drowsy when the furnace turned on and then he collapsed on the porch on Jan. 7.
“I started nodding off. I never do that. I got drowsy when the furnace kicked on,” Wolf said. “I went out on the porch and collapsed.”
He said he crawled to a nearby convenience store where someone called an ambulance for him. He said he was released from the hospital on Jan. 21.
Wolf was 64 at the time. He said he was left without a home after the building was condemned.
