Son sues agency, alleges faulty A/C led to his elderly mother’s heat-related death
The son of an 82-year-old woman who died in the heat of summer at an affordable housing complex is suing Southern Nevada’s regional housing authority because of what lawyers say was a faulty air conditioner.
A wrongful death lawsuit filed in Clark County District Court last week centers around Helen Elliott, a resident of the Lubertha Johnson Estates apartment complex who died, in part, because of environmental heat stress on July 15, 2024. Her primary cause of death, according to the Clark County coroner, was hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
The legal complaint implicates the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, as well as unnamed employees, property managers and corporations that designed and tested the air conditioner.
“As a direct and proximate result of the negligence of Defendants, and each of them, (Elliott) was seriously injured, caused to suffer great pain of body and mind, and ultimately died,” the complaint said.
Elliott had complained to her son about the air conditioner two days before her death, and she placed multiple calls in to the complex’s emergency maintenance phone line that went unanswered, the complaint alleges.
The family’s lawyer, Tyler Bixby, and his firm Blackburn Wirth, declined to comment because Elliott’s death is still being investigated. A request seeking comment from the housing authority wasn’t returned as of Thursday.
One of 527 lost to heat in Las Vegas
It was 98 degrees inside of Elliott’s unit, according to the complaint that referenced the coroner’s investigation.
Following an unrelenting streak of triple-digit temperatures that month that broke 111 degrees a week before, that July day reached a high of 95 degrees, National Weather Service data shows. Experts have told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the cumulative toll of extreme heat can be deadly, especially as nights fail to cool off.
Factors that make people more susceptible to succumbing to extreme heat include old age, drug use and homelessness, according to experts.
Extreme heat places an intense strain on the heart and can exacerbate cardiovascular problems, according to Harvard Medical School. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that about a quarter of heat-related deaths are due to the interaction of extreme heat and heart problems.
Elliott’s death is one of at least 527 in Southern Nevada last year where heat was a contributing or primary cause. The coroner’s office has already recorded three heat-related deaths in 2025.
A separate wrongful death lawsuit was filed last month against a Las Vegas hospital and addiction center by the family of Melissa Gallia, who died of environmental heat stress in the hospital’s parking lot. Gallia had been experiencing hallucinations from alcohol withdrawal, according to a legal complaint.
The lawsuit against the housing authority seeks unspecified damages, and the defendants haven’t filed any formal response as of Thursday afternoon.
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.