Less than 24 hours after two wings of a South Florida high-rise condominium collapsed, leaving at least four people dead and dozens more missing, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of its residents and visitors.
The class-action lawsuit filed Thursday night by the Brad Sohn Law Firm is believed to be the first legal action brought against the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, Miami’s WPLG-TV reports.
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Seeking monetary damages exceeding $5 million, the lawsuit aims to “compensate the victims of this unfathomable loss,” which the complaint alleges could have been avoided.
DOCUMENT: View a PDF copy of the class-action lawsuit
Two wings of the 12-story high-rise in Surfside, a suburb north of Miami Beach in Miami-Dade County, collapsed early Thursday morning, burying those trapped inside in a heap of rubble and prompting an around-the-clock search-and-rescue operation to locate survivors and anyone who perished.
The lawsuit called the collapse “one of the most breathtakingly frightening tragedies in the history of South Florida,” a catastrophe it claims the condominium association could have but did not prevent.
Citing statements made by the condominium association’s attorney Ken Direktor that “repair needs had been identified” but not acted upon, the complaint said the collapse happened as a result of the association’s “acts and omissions and their failure to properly protect the lives and property” of victims.
Among other things, the lawsuit accuses the condominium association of neither taking the proper steps to protect residents and visitors nor disclosing that it did not have adequate safety measures in place.
As News4Jax previously reported, the I-TEAM learned that work was being performed on the roof of the building, which was in the middle of its 40-year building recertification. The recertification is a process that is required by law to ensure the building is structurally sound and safe for occupancy.
Built atop reclaimed wetlands, the 130-plus-unit tower has been sinking at an “alarming rate” of roughly 2 millimeters per year since the 1990s, a Florida International University researcher told USA Today.
Fifty-five, or nearly half, of the condo’s units were impacted by Thursday’s collapse. As of last check on Friday, searchers had recovered four bodies from the wreckage. While Miami-Dade County officials say 120 people have been located, roughly 160 others remain unaccounted for.
Though the disaster has sparked speculation about what might be to blame for the building’s collapse, officials including Gov. Ron DeSantis have said it will be some time before the cause becomes clear.
“I know that they are going to have engineers looking at this, to try to identify what happened and what was the problematic occurrence. And so, probably you’re not going to have those answers immediately. But I know that they are diligently going to be working to be able to do that,” DeSantis said Thursday.
Sohn, the attorney behind the lawsuit, said in a statement obtained by WPLG-TV that it’s his belief the tragedy was preventable, and that legal action will ensure those responsible are held to account.
“As a lawyer, I can’t fix what is irreparable,” Sohn said. “But what I can do is fight to immediately fully compensate these victims so that they can focus all of their energy on healing as best they can. Our investigation continues, but we strongly believe this was preventable.”
View the lawsuit
Information from the Associated Press, News Service of Florida, USA Today & WPLG-TV contributed to this report.