Baltimore claims container ship was ‘unseaworthy’ and owner should pay for bridge collapse

The owner and operator of the container ship that took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month should not be allowed to skirt liability for the deadly and costly collapse because the vessel was “unseaworthy” when it left port, attorneys for the city of Baltimore asserted in court filings Monday.

The bridge’s collapse was caused by “negligence of the vessel’s crew and shoreside management,” the city claimed in court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

The Dali lost power on March 26 as it was exiting the Port of Baltimore and careened into one of the Key Bridge support pillars, crumpling the 1.6-mile span above where eight members of a construction crew were working on the roadway. Six of them died; two survived.

Days after the fatal collapse, the Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and manager, Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., filed a petition in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, asking a judge to cap how much money they could be asked to pay in liabilities at about $43.6 million.

But attorneys for the city said in Monday’s filing that there should be no such cap, because liability cannot be limited if there is evidence of fault - an allegation they wrote could be proven at trial.

The court filing cites an Associated Press report published April 15, in which someone identified as a “person with knowledge of the situation” said that alarms on the Dali’s refrigerated containers sounded while the ship was docked in Baltimore. The filing did not detail other evidence to support the city’s claims.

Those alarms, the court filing claims, are indicative of an “inconsistent power supply” that was “not investigated or, if investigated, not fixed.”

“None of this should have happened,” attorneys wrote.

The city also made several broad claims against the owners and operators of the Dali, asserting they had failed to properly train the ships crew, follow safe work and operational procedures, properly equip the vessel, conduct adequate inspections and provide proper management of the vessel. The city did not provide any evidence or examples to explain those allegations.

Attorneys for the city did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday afternoon.

A spokesperson for Synergy Marine and Grace Ocean declined to comment Monday citing ongoing federal investigations and the legal proceedings.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation have been investigating the crash since the collapse last month. The NTSB is expected to release a preliminary report into its probe in early May.

The FBI has also opened a separate criminal probe into the disaster.

In filing a claim against Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, the city said the disaster “single-handedly shut down the Port of Baltimore, a source of jobs, municipal revenue, and no small amount of pride for the City of Baltimore and its residents.” The city said it would bear the impact of cleanup, tax losses and strain on Baltimore’s roads diverted from the now missing Key Bridge.