The owner and the operator of the container ship that took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month should not be allowed to skirt liability for the deadly and costly collapse because the vessel was “unseaworthy” when it left port, attorneys for the city of Baltimore asserted in court filings Monday.
The bridge’s collapse was caused by “negligence of the vessel’s crew and shoreside management,” the city claimed in court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The Dali lost power on March 26 as it was exiting the Port of Baltimore and careened into one of the Key Bridge support pillars, crumpling the 1.6-mile span above, where eight members of a construction crew were working on the roadway. Six of them died; two survived.
Days after the fatal collapse, the Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and manager, Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., filed a petition in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, asking a judge to cap how much money they could be asked to pay in liabilities at about $43.6 million.
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But attorneys for the city said in Monday’s filing that there should be no such cap, because liability cannot be limited if there is evidence of fault — an allegation they wrote could be proved at trial.
The court filing cites an Associated Press report published April 15, in which someone identified as a “person with knowledge of the situation” said that alarms on the Dali’s refrigerated containers sounded while the ship was docked in Baltimore. The filing did not detail other evidence to support the city’s claims.
Those alarms, the court filing claims, were indicative of an “inconsistent power supply” that was “not investigated or, if investigated, not fixed.”
“None of this should have happened,” attorneys wrote.
The city also made several broad claims against the owner and the operator of the Dali, asserting they had failed to properly train the ship’s crew, follow safe work and operational procedures, properly equip the vessel, conduct adequate inspections, and provide proper management of the vessel. The city did not provide any evidence or examples to explain those allegations.
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The Baltimore City Law Department declined to answer questions about the filing, as did Mayor Brandon Scott (D) at a news conference Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Synergy Marine and Grace Ocean declined to comment, citing ongoing federal investigations and the legal proceedings.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation have been investigating the crash since the collapse last month. The NTSB is expected to release a preliminary report into its probe in early May.
The FBI has also opened a separate criminal probe into the disaster.
In filing a claim against Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, the city said the disaster “single-handedly 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.” The city said it would bear the impact of the cleanup, tax losses and the strain on Baltimore’s roads diverted from the now-missing Key Bridge.
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At the Tuesday news conference, state and federal officials said that they are on track to fully reopen the shipping channel blocked by wreckage by the end of May so the Port of Baltimore can resume normal operations.
Later this week, officials hope to open a fourth temporary channel, which will be 35 feet deep and allow five trapped ships out of the port. The temporary channel is the deepest to date.
“This is an important milestone,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D). “This is a step on the journey, but it is not the destination.”
Moore said crews have removed 2,900 tons of debris from the fallen Key Bridge, including the recent lift of a 560-ton section of wreckage — the largest to date. The 35-foot-deep channel will remain open for four days, before officials close it to begin rigging the large section of bridge that remains draped across the bow of the Dali.
Once that is removed, crews can float the Dali back to port.
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