“The ship’s owner and manager — who now ask the Court to limit their liability to less than $44 million — sent an ill-prepared crew on an abjectly unseaworthy vessel to ply the United States’ waterways,” attorneys wrote in the filing. “They did so to reap the profits of conducting business in American ports, while at the same time cutting corners in ways that risked lives and infrastructure so that they could save time and money. Those responsible for the vessel must be held fully accountable for the catastrophic harm they caused, and punitive damages should be imposed to deter such misconduct.”
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In a statement, Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, said today’s filing “was anticipated” but that the “owner and manager will have no further comment on the merits of any claim at this time.”
“We do look forward to our day in court to set the record straight,” Wilson said.
In a press call Wednesday, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer called the deaths of the six construction workers “needless and heartbreaking.” He said the Justice Department is seeking $100 million in economic damages as well as unspecified punitive damages, a rare move for the government in civil cases but one officials made in the Dali case because of the “egregious facts” they discovered during their investigation.
Erek Barron, US attorney for the District of Maryland, said Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine must “answer for their negligence” and “shoulder the burden” of the $100 million that US government agencies, including the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Labor, had to spend to clean the bridge wreckage and reopen the Port of Baltimore, one of the nation’s key shipping hubs.
The filing came just before a Tuesday deadline for involved parties to object to the owner’s request for a damages cap in a case that is likely to be litigated for years, with potentially billions of dollars at stake.
The city of Baltimore and business owners in the region have also challenged the Dali owner’s and operator’s attempts to limit their monetary liability. In the coming days, attorneys for the families of those killed, as well as the state of Maryland, are also expected to make similar arguments in court against the requested cap.
The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into whether the ship’s crew and owner allowed the Dali to leave port knowing the vessel had serious system problems, though no one has yet been charged criminally with any wrongdoing. Justice Department officials declined to answer questions Wednesday about the status of the criminal case, but the civil filing makes clear that US officials believe that laws were violated.
“This tragedy was entirely avoidable,” Justice Department attorneys wrote. “The electrical and mechanical systems on the DALI were improperly maintained and configured in a way that violated safety regulations and norms for international shipping.”
The ship also experienced power loss the day before the crash — a matter that, by law, should have been reported to the Coast Guard, but was not, according to the filing.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is also investigating the incident, has said previously that the Dali suffered two electrical blackouts the day before the collision and experienced two more blackouts that disabled critical equipment, causing it to careen into a massive bridge spanning the frigid Patapsco River where an eight-person construction crew was doing road repairs.
The Justice Department filing, though, offers a far more detailed and plainspoken account of maintenance issues on the ship and what caused them, as well as a timeline of the minutes before the Dali hit the bridge.
All four backstops meant to help control the ship — the propeller, rudder, anchor, and bow thruster— failed to work in the critical moments before the crash because, the department alleged, the Dali was unseaworthy.
The department alleged that about four minutes before the Dali collided with the Key Bridge, its key “number 1″ electrical transformer tripped and cut power. That transformer, according to the filing, had long suffered the effects of heavy vibration, which is known to cause systems failures. But rather than fixing the problem, the department said, the ship’s owner and operator “took a Band-Aid approach.”
“They retrofitted the transformer with anti-vibration braces, one of which had cracked over time, had been repaired with welds, and had cracked again,” Justice Department attorneys wrote. “And they also wedged a metal cargo hook between the transformer and a nearby steel beam, in a makeshift attempt to limit vibration.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-18 09:13:00
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