O2020年n 9月15日,强热带风暴接近the Gulf Coast of Florida and appeared to be heading for a landfall in Alabama. In Florida’s westernmost city, Pensacola, contractor Skanska had partly finished, and traffic was flowing over, the new 3-mile-long Pensacola Bay Bridge. Project leaders believed the worst could be avoided as the storm track called for it to land 200 miles away.
五十五个建筑驳船被绑住，但大多数被留在工作地点。
Unexpectedly, the storm veered to the northeast and intensified—eventually becoming Hurricane Sally—coming ashore near Gulf Shores, Ala., only 30 miles west of the project site. Punished by wind and surge, 27 barges broke free of moorings, with several washing ashore on private property.
The wind, waves and storm surge drove one 120-ft-long barge into the new bridge, taking a bite out of its deck section and damaging many beams. Because the old bridge was already being demolished, it could not be re-opened to traffic, cutting off many local residents from quick access to the other side of the bay. After months of广泛的维修- 额外的成本数百万美元 - 桥梁于6月重新开放。18luck.cub
The overall cost to Skanska is still being tallied and includes penalties due to the Florida Dept. of Transportation for the bridge closure. But a four-day civil court trial of about 1,000 claims against the contractor by motorists and business and property owners concluded Oct. 22 in federal court in Pensacola. The decision could add millions to Skanska's total liability.
The court record shows that during pretrial maneuvering in the days leading up to the trial, the main issue—whether Skanska’s team was prudent in leaving the barges in place, or negligent, and how members came to their decision—was being examined in minute detail.
The case was initiated in 2020 by Skanska, seeking protection against likely claims for damage. It is known formally as Skanska USA Civil Southeast Inc. and Skanska USA Inc., as "Owners of the Barge M8030 Praying for Exoneration From or For Limitation of Liability."
联邦科学家描述了萨利飓风的道路和强度不稳定。Skanska, the company claimed, took all reasonable steps to prepare for the storm, which suddenly changed direction and hit with unexpected intensity.
Barge damage to section of Pensacola Bay Bridge. Photo: Courtesy of FDOT
In the spring, judges granted Skanska’s motion to limit the contractor’s liability—based on federal maritime law—to the value of the barges, which range from $125,000 to $550,000. One court document indicates that the ruling effectively limits Skanska’s liability total to about $7 million.
在使用电视广告招募客户之后，原告的律师后来代表驾驶者和企业主对Skanska提起了数百起针对Skanska的诉讼。其中包括Yoshiko McKnight，他是Yoko Breake的Flowers的所有者，她寻求62,000美元的收入，她声称由于Skanska驳船损害了这座桥，她损失了。Robello Lopaka是另一家海湾微风业务的所有者Aloha丝网印刷，寻求$ 56,000。
其他索赔人正在根据增加的气体成本和自动使用来寻求较小的数量，从不得不开车到达海湾周围的目的地，而新桥的功能部分被关闭以进行维修。18luck.cub
一名法官的一个不寻常的决定在八月份出现。
她说，治安法官霍普·霍普（Hope Thai Cannon）对Skanska判处92,000美元的罚款，以擦拭干净或破坏该项目的五份手机，这一行为有效地破坏了审判证据。根据法官的说法，Skanska在保护与诉讼相关的电话数据的程序中归咎于其差距。
“This is a textbook case of spoliation,” meaning, the destruction of evidence, Cannon wrote in August in granting claimants' motion for a penalty.
During pre-trial depositions earlier this year, lawyers for local residents and business owner claimants tried to pick apart the detailed procedures observed by Skanska’s staff in the days and hours before the hurricane struck. Claimants allege that Skanska had ample meteorological information about the hurricane’s path to relocate the construction barges away from the jobsite. The contractor's emergency plans, according to the claimants, say that task would have needed to start 30 hours before a storm hit.
Instead, Skanska decided to keep working on the new bridge until the latest possible day and tied down the barges at the construction site so that work could continue, instead of moving them farther away, claimants allege.
The path of Hurricane Sally took a turn to the northeast. Image: Courtesy of NOAA
审前的操作直到审判开始前几天才结束。
Skanska filed a motion to exclude all testimony and evidence about other hurricanes and storms prior to and following Hurricane Sally. The court record isn’t clear about how, or if, that was decided by the judges.
Another motion by Skanska sought to exclude deposition testimony of project manager Robert Rodgers, the third-highest employee on the project, because he was not, in the conractor's view, a “managing agent” of the project.
The subject had come up earlier in the year when Skanska Project Executive Thomas DeMarco was deposed on June 18. The deposition was supposed to be about who had specific roles and responsibilities on the bridge replacement project. He was questioned by claimant attorney Thomas Gonzalez about that and about the hurricane plan itself.
DeMarco testified in the deposition that the hurricane preparedness plan was part of the Skanska Environmental Health & Safety responsibilities, and that it includes inclement weather. Gonzalez had DeMarco show him exactly who on Skanska’s staff had responsibility for the EHS plan. The group included the project superintendent and a safety manager, field engineer and project engineer. All had signed off on the safety plan created as work on the project moved in 2016 to 2017 from a precast yard located on land to working over water.
The Pensacola Bay Bridge connects Pensacola with Gulf Breeze. Map: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
在质疑下，德马科（Demarco）作证说，他和罗杰斯（Rodgers）负责注意天气和远程天气预报，并且气象数据是由顾问Alan Archer＆Associates提供的。
在审讯期间，冈萨雷斯律师有时会在证词的商定主题之外转向，从而削减了该项目的责任和角色。
“In the process of implementing a hurricane preparedness plan, was there someone who had the role of monitoring the expenditures or budget associated with implementation?” he asked.
Skanska’s lawyer objected and the question wasn’t answered at that time.
该案的双方现在都在准备后审判动议，不太可能在12月之前有法院裁决。
