Victims of the 2018 pedestrian bridge collapse at Florida International University in Miami could soon receive their share of nearly $103 million.
The Miami Herald reports that the proposed settlement is part of a bankruptcy plan proposed by Munilla Construction Management (MCM), the project’s general contractor.
Senior bankruptcy judge A. Jay Cristol has agreed to expedite the process and could approve the settlement by the end of the year. That means the survivors of the six people killed and the more than 10 people injured could receive payouts by the beginning of next year.
“It was a complicated, difficult process, and the lawyers on both sides have worked very hard to achieve a fair result for the victims as well as the corporate defendants through a very complicated series of negotiations,” says Alan Goldfarb, who represents the parents of 18-year-old Alexa Duran, who was killed in the collapse.
The 950-ton pedestrian bridge collapsed on March 15, 2018, and fell onto a row of stopped vehicles.
In July, all but one of the companies implicated in the disaster reached settlements with the victims, including FIGG, the Tallahassee-based engineering firm that designed the 950-ton, 320-foot bridge. The holdout was Louis Berger, an engineering consulting firm hired to double-check FIGG’s design and calculations. The details of the individual settlements are confidential.
MCM filed its bankruptcy plan last week, the same day the National Transportation Safety Board released a report that blamed the collapse on design failures, inadequate oversight and systematic negligence.
MCM says that as part of the reorganization it “will provide for the contribution of $102,751,000 to a trust for the benefit of the Bridge Collapse Bodily Injury Claimants.”
“MCM has worked tirelessly to develop a plan that, among other things, will put substantial funds in the hands of those most affected by this tragic accident,” the company said in a statement. “Our prayers continue to be with those who were impacted by the bridge’s failure.”
