I-35 Bridge Collapse Contractor Settles Lawsuits With State and Survivors
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune's Jim Foti reports in I-35 Bridge Firm Settles Suits on Friday's settlement between Progressive Contractors, Inc. (the "contractor") on one side and State of Minnesota and the disaster survivors on the other. Terms of the settlement, approved Friday by Judge Deborah Hedlund, are confidential.
Kyle Hart, one of the contractor's lawyers, said the company's insurers "tendered the limits of the contractor's liability insurance." Chris Messerly, a lawyer for 103 survivors, suggested that the settlement isn't for a huge amount compared to claims against others with a role in the disaster. Others include the engineers who respectively designed and inspected the bridge: Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc and URS Corp. The state's lawsuits against Jacobs and URS, and URS's countersuit against the state, are still pending.
Messers. Hart and Messerly still disagree about the contractor's responsibility for the disaster. But Mr. Messerly said settlement "is in [the survivors'] best interests under the circumstances. This was a secondary defendant without a lot of assets and resources." He also also added that the contractor is "not the primary wrongdoer."
The various suits against the contractor alleged that while resurfacing the bridge in the summer of 2007, they placed 287 tons of gravel, equipment, and other materials on the bridge's center span. Critics contend that weight then contributed to the collapse, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The NTSB's Report on the disaster says that the bridge fell because some of its steel reinforcing plates were too thin. The NTSB also cited the weight of the construction materials as a contributing factor.
A separate settlement, also approved by Judge Hedlund, requires the contractor to pay the state $1M. The state sued the contractor to reimburse part of the $37M fund established by the Minnesota Legislature to pay survivors and families. The contractor also counter-sued the state, claiming state officials hadn't warned the contractor about the bridge's problems.
Jim Schwebel, a lawyer representing 34 victims and their families, said that Judge Hedlund instructed parties in the numerous suits to "work on a mediation track" while they proceeded through discovery at the same time. He also remarked:
I think that was an outstandingly intelligent thing for the court to do because in many cases the lawyers take depositions for two years, spend an enormous amount of time and money, and then they go into mediation.But not all claims are going to mediation right now. Mr. Messerly said that his group of lawyers made settlement overtures to URS, but URS declined. "We'll get justice for the victims when we have a chance to talk to a jury," he said. "We tried to settle it." I suspect this isn't the end of settlement talks and the parties will settle before any jurors get selected for a trial scheduled to start in March 2011.
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