Building collapse lawsuits seek answers and lay blame

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Even though the search continues over a week later looking for signs of life in the mutilated debris of the fallen Champlain South Towers, the process of seeking answers to the reasons for the incident and who is to blame is already underway in the Florida legal system.

Authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the collapse of the beachfront condominium, which left at least 22 confirmed dead and more than 120 missing. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has pledged to bring the case quickly to grand jurors, who could recommend criminal prosecution or simply investigate the case to suggest reforms.

And at least five lawsuits have been filed on behalf of residents who have survived or whose death is feared. A lawyer involved in the litigation said the collapse raises many concerns about infrastructure issues and the trust we place in those responsible for it.

We deserve to be able to enter buildings without fear of them collapsing around us and knowing that our loved ones can go to bed at night without worrying that they will collapse 12 stories below in their sleep, said Jeffrey Goodman, whose Philadelphia-based company filed a lawsuit on behalf of the children of missing resident Harold Rosenberg.

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Lawsuits to date accuse the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, and in some cases a local architect and engineer, of negligence for failing to resolve serious structural issues noted as early as 2018. A Surfside Town building inspector was also involved. of the discussions, and the Goodmans Company announced its intention to add the city as a respondent.

The role of building owners, architects, engineers, inspectors and safety professionals is to make sure buildings are safe for their occupants, Goodman said.

At a hearing on Friday, a judge appointed a receiver to represent the interests of the co-owner associations given the trauma experienced by the members of the board of directors, one of whom is still missing. The council has around $ 48 million in insurance coverage, while the beachfront land is valued at between $ 30 million and $ 50 million, the judge was told.

The judge said he hoped the dispute could be resolved quickly, possibly within a year. Until then, he has authorized receiver, attorney Michael Goldberg, to provide residents with $ 10,000 each for temporary accommodation and $ 2,000 to cover funeral costs.

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Lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi, who also represents the Rosenberg family and is seeking access to the site, said such cases are not just about money.

They want to make it a quest to find out what happened, Mongeluzzi said. We believe the evidence is still there.

Lawyers for the condominium association did not respond to emails seeking comment, nor did the board members themselves.

An earlier case with possible legal parallels concerns the 2013 collapse in Philadelphia of an unbraced wall of a building being demolished. It flipped into an adjacent Salvation Army store, killing six people and injuring 13, with a woman found alive 13 hours later, losing both legs and forced to undergo more than 30 surgeries before she died this year. .

In subsequent trials, a civilian jury found the Salvation Army, the building’s owner, and its architect largely responsible, and the parties agreed to pay $ 227 million in damages.

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On the criminal side, the architect received immunity in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors, while a food cart operator turned entrepreneur was acquitted of third degree murder charges but sentenced to 15 to 30 years for manslaughter ; a forklift driver who was taking prescription medication for an injury also went to jail.

The collapse also prompted the city of Philadelphia to send inspectors to examine demolition sites and led to stricter regulations.

In Florida, a grand jury is still examining the 2018 collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University that left six people dead. And manslaughter and third degree murder charges were filed following the accidental crash of the ValuJet 592 in the Everglades in 1996, which left 110 people dead.

Denis Bender, professor of tort law at Chapman University in Orange County, Calif., Who studies large-scale disasters, sees a growing trend in such cases not only to seek damages, but to pursue criminal proceedings, often for negligence. Perhaps this is because, more and more, we see them happening in real or near real time, as happened with the poignant images that Surfside aired around the world over the past week.

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I think it’s increasing because of media and social media, not necessarily because there’s a drumbeat, but everyone is horrified by what they can see. And there’s this cry for justice, Binder says.

On something spectacular like this, in today’s world there is great pressure to find flaws, he said. And there is already enough evidence (in Surfside) that people have made bad decisions.

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Dale reported from Philadelphia and Anderson from St. Petersburg, Florida.

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Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

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