Powers Fasteners settles Big Dig civil suit
Industrial Distribution staff -- Industrial Distribution, 12/26/2007 6:39:00 AM
Days before the official end to Boston’s mammoth Big Dig highway tunnel project, Powers Fasteners agreed to pay $6 million to the family of a woman killed when part of the tunnel's ceiling collapsed last year, The Boston Globe reported.The Brewster, N.Y.-based fasteners and adhesives manufacturer is the first defendant to settle in the lawsuit brought by the family of Milena Del Valle, the 38-year-old woman who was killed in July 2006 when part of the tunnel’s suspended concrete ceiling collapsed and crushed her car as she traveled to Boston’s Logan Airport. The $14.8 billion Big Dig project, which broke ground in 1991, is officially slated to close Dec. 31.
President Jeffrey Powers denied responsibility for the death but said in a statement that the company hoped the settlement would "allow the healing process to begin,” the newspaper reported.
"We also hope that this will lead others who, unlike Powers, truly were responsible for the accident, to do the same," the statement said, according to the Globe.
Powers is the only company facing criminal charges in addition to the civil suit. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley charged the company with negligent manslaughter for its part in the accident, alleging that the company failed to adequately distinguish between the fast-set and normal versions of the adhesive used to suspend the ceiling. Company officials have repeatedly denied the allegation, saying they warned state highway officials that the fast-set epoxy was not safe for overhead use.
Lawyers involved in the case told the newspaper that the settlement could help in its fight against the manslaughter charge. A move to have the criminal charges dismissed was overruled by a Massachusetts judge Dec. 18.
One of the slain woman’s family’s lawyers, Bradley Henry, told the newspaper that the Del Valles appreciated the Mass card Powers Fasteners commissioned with a prayer in honor of Milena Del Valle, saying, "That kind of thing has meaning and shows character."
Powers was the only entity named in the suit willing to meet with the family, added Mario Garcia, another of the family’s lawyers.
"We appreciate the Powers family doing the right thing," Garcia told the Globe in a separate report. "We just hope for the sake of these children the others will follow."
Other attorneys said the 15 other parties named in the civil suit, including the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, bear more responsibility than Powers for the accident.
"We certainly believe that there are others who are more responsible and more culpable," Jeffrey Denner, a lawyer for Del Valle's husband, Angel Del Valle, told the newspaper. "There's a lot of responsibility to go around."
Henry told the Globe that the Turnpike Authority, which operates the Massachusetts Turnpike and was responsible for overseeing construction of the 16-year project, is among the most responsible parties, comparing the work to "a badly built LEGO construction."
“[W]hatever else happened during the design and construction phases of this tunnel, when the tunnel was turned over to the Turnpike [Authority] it had an affirmative duty to make certain that it was inspected regularly. And as best we can tell, the Turnpike did nothing," Henry told the newspaper.
Powers lawyer Max Stern agreed, telling the Globe that the manufacturer was less responsible for the accident than others named in the suit.
"It's not only a question of what epoxy was used, but how this was installed and whether they ever inspected it," Stern said. "This ceiling assembly was up for seven years before it fell down."
But a lawyer for Bechtel Corp. and Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, the companies hired by the state to manage the design and construction of the project, said the Powers settlement doesn’t bear on any of the other defendants’ cases.
"Powers was in a unique situation and I don't think that would indicate any type of trend or any reason to think that others would follow suit," William Dailey Jr. told the newspaper. "Everyone will have to decide what they think is best as to their position."
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