Liquidators seek lost wages in Baltimore bridge collapse suit

A group of Baltimore sailors has sued the owner and manager of the ship that caused the Francis Scott Key Bridge to collapse, arguing that the companies should compensate them for lost wages while the port was closed following the deadly disaster.

The class action joins a number of other legal claims alleging that the Singapore-based owner and manager of the vessel, Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and Synergy Marine Group, knowingly sent an unsuitable vessel into US waters.

Six construction workers were killed in the collapse, which halted most shipping traffic through Baltimore’s busy port for months as crews worked around the clock to clear thousands of tons of damaged steel and concrete from the main shipping channel . During the initial cleanup, many liquidators found themselves out of work.

“This was the layoff equivalent of what the world experienced during COVID when everything came to a standstill,” said plaintiff Ryan Hale, who has worked at the port for more than a decade. “I’ll never forget, I wake up in the morning, get ready for work, turn on the news – I had to flip the channels twice to make sure it wasn’t a horror movie.”

The port fully reopened once the channel was cleared in June, but traffic did not immediately return as some ships were diverted as the global supply chain made adjustments immediately after the collapse.

“Nearly six months later, shipping traffic in the Port of Baltimore still has not returned to pre-disaster levels,” the Marines’ attorneys wrote in their filing. “Plaintiffs’ revenues have been and continue to be entirely dependent on the flow of cargo vessels in and out of the Port of Baltimore.”

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of about 2,200 members of the International Association of Liquidators union.

Baltimore attorney Billy Murphy, who represents the plaintiffs, said they are seeking to recover lost wages in addition to punitive damages.

Murphy held a news conference Thursday where three of the plaintiffs spoke about how the port closure has affected them. They said their access to jobs and benefits is based on seniority, so working fewer hours has serious implications because it could mean sliding back down the totem pole.

“Everything we get is acquired through hours,” Hale said.

A lawsuit filed last week by the US Department of Justice provided the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of failures at Dali that left the pilots and crew helpless in the face of looming disaster. That complaint alleges that mechanical and electrical systems on the massive ship were “jury-rigged” and poorly maintained, culminating in a power outage as it neared the bridge. The crew’s efforts to restore power in time were also hampered by other problems on the ship.

Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Grace Ocean, said the ship’s owner and manager “look forward to our day in court to clear things up.”

FBI agents boarded the Dali in April amid a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the crash. Agents boarded another container ship operated by Synergy on Saturday while it was docked in Baltimore.

Dali was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka when his steering failed due to power outages. Six men on a road crew, filling potholes during a night shift, fell to their deaths when the bridge collapsed beneath them.

While the ship experienced a number of electrical problems before and after leaving Baltimore, the outage that occurred as it approached the bridge likely resulted from a loose electrical connection that was damaged by vibrations from on Dali, according to recent court filings.

Engineers on the ship manually restored power by reconnecting the tripped breakers, but it shut down again due to a problem with the fuel pumps. Lawyers claim the ship’s generator fueling was improperly reconfigured as a cost-cutting measure after Grace Ocean acquired it in 2017.

Grace Ocean and Synergy filed a court petition days after the wreck, seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the costliest maritime accident case in history. Since then, a number of entities have filed counterclaims, including the Baltimore mayor and city council, victims’ families, local businesses and insurance companies. All were consolidated into a single extended liability case, and the deadline for most filings was Tuesday.

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