The State-Journal Register reports that five lawsuits have been filed in connection with last September’s carbon monoxide leak at North Mac Intermediate School in Girard, Ill., that sent dozens of students and teachers to the hospital.

Their complaints allege that when a 2003 building addition to the school was designed and constructed, the venting system for the hot water heaters in the mechanical room was defective, causing a modification to be made to the vents that extended the vent pipe high above the roof and required guy wires.

According to documents produced by the school district under the Freedom of Information Act, one of those guy wires to the vent pipe was found after the accident to be broken, according to a press release from the Nolan Law Group.

A district employee and the plumbing/heating contractor had noticed a break in the vent pipe inside the building the week prior to Sept. 15, 2014, and performed a temporary repair that did not hold, the release said.

More details here.