The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the owner and operator of the container ship that caused the Francis Scott Key Bridge to collapse in March, killing six workers and paralyzing the Port of Baltimore for weeks.
The lawsuit claims the companies’ actions that led to the disaster were “outrageous, grossly negligent, willful, wanton and reckless.”
The government is seeking more than $100 million in damages to cover the costs of the massive emergency response to the disaster and federal aid to port workers who lost their jobs. The complaint also seeks punitive damages, but does not specify the amount.
Filed in federal court in Maryland, the Justice Department’s complaint details what investigators learned about the ship’s short, disastrous voyage that night, describing a cascade of failures on board and multiple moments when the disaster could have been avoided.
Due to poor maintenance or “improvised” solutions to serious problems aboard the ship, known as the Dali, “none of the four means available to help control the Dali – its propeller, rudder, anchor or bow thruster – functioned when needed to avoid or even mitigate this disaster,” the lawsuit alleges.
The Dali is registered in Singapore and owned by Grace Ocean Ltd. and managed by Synergy Marine Group, both based in Singapore.
The companies, named as plaintiffs in legal documents, had said their liability for the incident should be limited to no more than $44 million. Representatives for the companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning.
Justice Department officials said they could not comment on the status of a separate federal criminal investigation into the crash.
The Dali, as long as the height of the Eiffel Tower, lost its power and crashed into the On March 26, the Key Bridge collapsed, killing six men who were repairing the bridge’s roadway.
On Tuesday, the families of three of the victims announced that they too were suing the owner of the Dali. The deadline to file a civil complaint is next week.
The ship became stuck in the rubble when the bridge fell into the Patapsco River, blocking access to the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the East Coast. A massive cleanup operation was launched, involving dozens of barges, tugboats, excavators, floating cranes and even explosives. Some 50,000 tons of debris had to be removed from the river.
Temporary shipping lanes were soon reopened to some ships, and in May, after enough debris had been removed, the Dali was dislodged and sailed the two and a half miles to the terminal it had left two months earlier. The badly damaged ship was then transferred to a Norfolk shipyard for repairs.
The main shipping route, the 700-foot-wide Fort McHenry Federal Channel, wasn’t fully cleared until June. And rebuilding the bridge will take much longer. State officials have said it will take four years to rebuild the Key Bridge, at a cost of up to $1.9 billion.
A Justice Department official said Wednesday that the state of Maryland will seek to recoup the cost of rebuilding the bridge through legal action.
The ship was heading to Sri Lanka at the time of the crash with about 4,700 containers on board, as well as 1.5 million gallons of fuel and lubricating oil. None of the 21 crew members, most of whom were Indian citizens, were injured in the crash, nor were the two pilots who were on board at the time.
