‘Entirely Avoidable Catastrophe’: DOJ Files $100 Million Lawsuit Over Ship That Destroyed Baltimore Bridge

Back in April, the companies that owned and operated the Dali, the massive container ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore earlier this year, filed a petition aimed at limiting their liability in the disaster to $43.7 million. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice tore a preliminary hole in that attempt at a financial shield, filing a lawsuit aiming to recover “more than $100 million” from the companies.

“This was an entirely avoidable catastrophe, resulting from a series of eminently foreseeable errors made by the owner and operator of the DALI,” said Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, according to a DOJ press release.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maryland against Singapore-based Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited, alleges that the companies knew full well that their ship was rife with electrical problems.

“Out of negligence, mismanagement, and, at times, a desire to cut costs, they configured the ship’s electrical and mechanical systems in a way that prevented those systems from being able to quickly restore propulsion and steering after a power outage,” said Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer. “As a result, when the DALI lost power, a cascading set of failures led to disaster.”

The result was a slow-motion calamity, caught on camera, that killed six construction workers who didn’t have time to get off the bridge. A spokesperson for the companies told the New York Times that no specific comment on the lawsuit is forthcoming, “but we do look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”

The $100 million-plus sought by the DOJ is actually quite limited in scope, representing “costs the United States incurred in responding to the fatal disaster and for clearing the entangled wreck and bridge debris from the navigable channel so the port could reopen.” Notably absent from that description is both lawsuits from the victims’ families (three of which were announced on Tuesday) as well as the cost of rebuilding of the bridge itself — because it was built and owned by the State of Maryland, further claims could still come separate from the DOJ effort. Maryland officials have estimated the bridge could cost as much as $1.9 billion to rebuild.