By The New York Times (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-24 16:45:10 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:22:37
5 days ago
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The lawsuit is the latest legal fallout from the disaster in March, which killed six people and halted operations at the Port of Baltimore.
Sept. 24, 2024, 12:37 p.m. ET
The state of Maryland is demanding that the owner and the operator of the ship that toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March pay up.
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Maryland leaders said the collapse of the bridge, which killed six workers, was going to end up costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars, from the rebuilding of the Key Bridge to the excess wear on roadways that have had to absorb all the traffic that would have used the crossing.
“We will not allow Marylanders to be left with the bill for the gross negligence, mismanagement and incompetence that caused this harm,” Maryland’s attorney general, Anthony G. Brown, said at a news conference.
The suit is the latest legal action against the ship’s owner, Grace Ocean Ltd., and its operator, Synergy Marine Group, and was filed on the deadline set by the court for such claims.
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department sued Grace Ocean and Synergy for more than $100 million to cover the costs to the federal government of the sprawling response operation. The federal suit gave a detailed account of what went wrong onboard the ship, describing a cascade of failures that it ascribed to faulty maintenance and “jury-rigged” fixes to longstanding problems.
The companies, both of which are based in Singapore, have argued in federal court that their liability for the crash should be limited to $44 million, a fraction of what is being sought in claims by the federal government, Maryland and families of some of the men killed in the collapse.
