Here's a Look at Three Previous Suits Against the Builder of Collapsed Bridge
Munilla Construction Management, which built and installed the bridge, has been sued in the past over allegations of negligent construction work.
March 16, 2018 at 05:25 PM
5 minute read
The builder of the collapsed bridge at Florida International University has been accused in the past for negligent construction work that left some injured, court records show.
The company, Munilla Construction Management LLC, said one of those suits was a simple “trip and fall” case. MCM did not comment on two other suits, one of which apparently settled.
Based in South Miami, MCM is a family owned firm that over the years has worked on projects at Miami International Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, PortMiami, schools and other local facilities, such as a fire rescue training facility, according to its website.
MCM won the bid to build and install the FIU bridge, which was still under construction when it collapsed Thursday. Just five days earlier, the 950-ton span was swung into place.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the collapse, which as of Friday has left six people dead.
MCM has said it will “conduct a full investigation to determine exactly what went wrong” and that it will cooperate with NTSB in its investigation.
“Our thoughts are with the families and victims. … We are just heartbroken,” MCM said in an emailed statement.
Broward County resident Jose Perez claimed a makeshift bridge MCM built collapsed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Oct. 20, 2016, while Perez walked on the structure.
Perez, who hit his elbow, shoulder, knees, back and wrists, is suing MCM for more than $15,000, according to the Miami-Dade Circuit Court complaint filed March 8 by Tesha Allison of The Law Office of Tesha Allison in Miami Lakes.
In an emailed statement, MCM said, ”This was simply a trip and fall accident that occurred on the ground floor involving a piece of plywood that was covering a sidewalk under construction.”
In another case, MCM is accused of being negligent in connection to work it did on a road construction job in Hialeah as a contractor for the Florida Department of Transportation, according to a Miami-Dade Circuit Court complaint.
Eduardo Perez was injured after his car struck an elevated or raised manhole cover, setting the car on fire, according to the Nov. 22, 2016, complaint filed by Nicholas Gerson and other attorneys at Gerson & Schwartz in Miami.
Perez sued MCM and another construction company that also worked on the project for more than $15,000.
Another suit, originally filed in December 2015, accuses MCM of negligence in a road construction job it did, court records show.
The case, which has since closed, revolves around construction work MCM did for the city of Miami, including on a sidewalk at Southwest 24th Avenue and Third Street, according to court records.
Oralia Fernandez in September 2013 fell while walking on the sidewalk after tripping on a protruding concrete curb edge, according to the complaint. Fernandez, who was 63 at the time, had to undergo spinal surgery for her injury, according to the complaint.
Fernandez also sued the city and other companies the city had hired for the construction, according to the complaint. In January, the lawsuit against MCM was dismissed after MCM and Fernandez jointly filed to dismiss their claims against each other, court records show.
MCM declined to comment on this and the case involving the manhole cover accident.
In court filings in response to the Fernandez case, MCM denied it was negligent and said it did the job up to standard, according to a lawsuit response filed by Raul Morales of law firm Martinez Morales in Coral Gables on behalf of MCM.
The FIU bridge was a highly touted project by officials, both as a way to keep students who have to cross Southwest Eighth Street safe and also for the use of an innovative construction and installation method.
The bridge connected campus to the city of Sweetwater, where student housing is located. It was built under an innovative method in which the 950-ton span was assembled and then installed in place at 109th Ave.
FIU was responsible for hiring MCM and the other companies that worked on the bridge, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.
FIGG Bridge Engineers Inc. is the designer of the bridge and Bolton, Perez & Associates was hired to do the construction engineering and inspection, according to the state.
The Miami New Times, which originally reported Perez's lawsuit against MCM over the collapsed makeshift bridge at the Fort Lauderdale airport, also reported that a bridge in Virginia that FIGG had assembled collapsed in June 2012. Four workers suffered minor injuries, the New Times reported.
The Virginia Department of Labor fined FIGG $28,000 and determined it had violated safety rules, including failure to do daily, weekly and monthly inspections of the girder.
For its part, FIGG said the Virginia bridge and the FIU bridge collapses are different, with the FIU incident being unprecedented for the company as no other of its bridges has “experienced such a collapse,” FIGG said in an emailed statement.
The Virginia incident was a “construction equipment property damage” issue that was unrelated to the final bridge, FIGG said in an emailed statement.
“A citation issued by the state was not related in any way to the structural integrity of the completed project,” FIGG in part said in its statement.
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