Families of workers killed and injured in Maryland bridge collapse sue owner and operator of cargo ship

Victims' families and a survivor of a Maryland bridge collapse that killed six people filed claims Friday for wrongful death and punitive damages against the owner and the operator of the massive cargo ship that crashed into the bridge earlier this year.

The 100,000-plus-ton ship Dali slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early hours of March 26 as a work crew was fixing potholes. Six construction workers died when the bridge went crumbling down into the Patapsco River. Another construction worker fell into the dark waters below and sustained serious injuries but survived, while an inspector working as a subcontractor for the Maryland Transportation Authority escaped the collapse without injuries. The nearly two dozen crew members on the ship survived, along with two pilots who were helping the vessel navigate the harbor.

The collapse also brought the critically important Baltimore Port to a standstill for months. 

The families are bringing the claims to hold the owner and the operator of the Dali “accountable and to ensure an avoidable tragedy like the Key Bridge disaster never happens again,” their attorneys wrote in the court documents. The claims were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland Northern Division.

The attorneys represent the families of Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Carlos Daniel Hernandez Estrella, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Jose Mynor Lopez, Miguel Angel Luna, Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval and survivor Julio Cervantes Suarez. 

Days after the bridge collapse, the ship’s Singapore-based owner and manager petitioned a Maryland court to limit their monetary liability to $43.67 million, the value of the ship and its cargo, based on a pre-Civil War provision of maritime law. 

The attorneys for the victims and their families said in a statement to NBC News on Friday that it was “outrageous” that six days after the collapse, the Dali’s owner and manager had “filed a heartless motion seeking to cap damages and prevent the innocent victims and their families from seeking justice.”

“We will not allow billion-dollar corporations to put profits over safety,” the attorneys said. “These families deserve justice and we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to assist these family members in their quest to ensure that no other families lose loved ones in such an unnecessary and tragic way.”

Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for the cargo ship’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and operator, Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., said Friday’s filing was expected. 

“The owner and manager will have no further comment on the merits of any claim at this time, but we do look forward to our day in court to set the record straight,” Wilson said

The city of Baltimore said in a legal filing in late April against the cargo ship’s owner and operator that “negligence caused them to destroy the Key Bridge, and singlehandedly shut down the Port of Baltimore, a source of jobs, municipal revenue, and no small amount of pride for the City of Baltimore and its residents.”

“None of this should have happened. Reporting has indicated that, even before leaving port, alarms showing an inconsistent power supply on the Dali had sounded. The Dali left port anyway, despite its clearly unseaworthy condition,” the city said in the filing. 

In response to the ship owner and operator’s claim for limited liability, the city said the incident was “caused by the unseaworthiness of the Dali and the negligence of the vessel’s crew and shoreside management” and that therefore, the requests for a limitation of liability should be denied.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department filed a claim against the companies seeking more than $100 million.

“The Justice Department is committed to ensuring accountability for those responsible for the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which resulted in the tragic deaths of six people and disrupted our country’s transportation and defense infrastructure,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “With this civil claim, the Justice Department is working to ensure that the costs of clearing the channel and reopening the Port of Baltimore are borne by the companies that caused the crash, not by the American taxpayer.”

The $100 million claim would cover only the cost of responding to  the collapse and clearing the wreckage. Officials have said they expect it will take several years to repair the state-owned bridge and cost $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion.

The department said that the companies prioritized profits and knew about issues with the ship that made it dangerous and unseaworthy. 

The attorneys for the victims and their families echoed the argument, saying in their legal claims Friday that the ship had “a well-recorded history of severe and dangerous vessel vibration issues, which directly affected its electrical system and rendered the vessel entirely unseaworthy.”

The attorneys said the issues were known to the ship’s owner and manager “but they departed anyway.”

The companies’ “reckless decision to leave berth in the face of these dangerous deficiencies was motivated by profit,” the legal claims said. 

The attorneys said they are seeking a trial by jury and unspecified damages “far in excess of the value of the vessel.”

Cervantes Suarez, who spoke exclusively to NBC News in July, said the Dali cargo ship “destroyed six families.”

He said he watched his co-workers disappear into the unforgiving waters below before he fell himself, the only person to survive the fall into the water.

“I looked at the bridge and it was no longer there,” Suarez said.

He said that he called out to each of his companions by name but that no one answered.

“I relive it all the time, the minutes before the fall and when I’m falling,” Suarez said.