Baltimore bridge victims' families filing suit to prevent shipowner from shirking legal liability
Families of some of the immigrant workers who died when a cargo ship plowed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March are expected to announce Tuesday that they will take legal action to hold the owners of the vessel legally liable for the deadly collapse, according to a report.
The families of three of the six victims will be asking a federal court to prevent Grace Ocean Private Limited, a Singapore-based company which owns the Dali, from escaping legal liability with regard to the maritime disaster, CBS reports.
In April, Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., as manager of the Dali, filed a petition for exoneration from or limitation of liability in the federal district court in Maryland over the deadly incident.
The Dali lost power on two occasions when it was little more than half a mile from the bridge in the early hours of March 26, which ultimately led the 117,000 ton vessel to slam into a main support pier on the bridge, causing part of the 47-year-old structure to collapse into the water within seconds.
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Eight construction workers who were on the bridge at the time doing maintenance fell into the water as it collapsed. Two of the eight survived, while six workers died.
Should the federal district court in Maryland allow the case to proceed, the victims' families could pursue legal action to obtain monetary compensation for the deaths of their loved ones, Matthew Wessler of Gupta Wessler LLP, the firm planning to file the court motion, told CBS.
"They all have suffered an unimaginable tragedy, losing their loved ones, whether it was one of our clients who lost her husband and partner. Another who lost their son," Wessler told CBS News. "And we think that accountability, or they think that justice here means holding those responsible accountable."
Wessler told the outlet that his firm is planning to file the motion to hold Grace Ocean Private Limited legally liable before a Sept. 24 deadline which was triggered following the April petition.
He says Grace Ocean Private Limited was negligent and that the ship should not have left the port when it did, having lost power multiple times prior to its departure.
A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that a crewmember of the Dali accidentally disabled the vessel’s equipment during in-port maintenance while it was moored at the Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore on March 25. Crewmembers experienced a second blackout due to insufficient fuel pressure for the online generator.
When leaving the harbor in the early hours of March 26, a primary electrical breaker that fed most of the ship's equipment and lighting unexpectedly tripped, causing the ship to lose electrical power and experience a blackout.
The main propulsion diesel engine then shut down after the pumps lost electrical power. The ship's crew was able to restore power, then called for an assist from tug boats and the senior pilot ordered the ship's anchor to be dropped.
A second blackout then happened, and a marine radio call was made to warn waterborne traffic, but the ship struck a main support pier on the bridge, causing it to collapse and plunging the workers to their deaths.
It is unclear what role the earlier technical malfunctions may have played in the vessel’s loss of power before it hit the bridge.
Fox News Digital reached out to Gupta Wessler LLP via its PR firm for comment, as well as attorneys representing Grace Ocean Private Limited, but did not immediately receive responses.
The legal action will be filed on behalf of the families of Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, Jose Maynor Lopez Sandoval and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, CBS reports.
Despite the immediate dispatch of salvage divers to the collapse, it took six weeks before all the bodies of the missing construction crew members were recovered. All of the victims were Latino immigrants who had moved to the U.S. for work opportunities.
The Dali remained stuck amid the wreckage for almost two months, with a massive steel truss draped across its damaged bow. On May 20, the ship was refloated and guided back to port. That allowed officials to open a channel that was 50 feet deep and 400 feet wide, big enough for most of the largest commercial vessels.
Officials have pledged to rebuild the bridge, which could cost at least $1.7 billion and take several years.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz and the Associated Press contributed to this report.