Attorneys for the people injured when the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed two years ago have added three defendants to their potential claims just days before the deadline to file suit.
Court documents were filed putting the City of Pittsburgh on notice that it would be subject to a lawsuit just months after the Jan. 28, 2022, collapse.
But on Wednesday and Thursday, the plaintiffs added engineering firms Larson Design Group Inc, Gannett Fleming Inc., and CDM Smith Inc. as defendants.
The plaintiffs include Pittsburgh Regional Transit driver Daryl Luciani and his wife, Karen; dentist Clinton Runco and his wife, Irene; Velva and Tyrone Perry; Matthew Evans; Joseph Engelmeier; and Thomas and Sara Bench.
Also filing notice of suit on Thursday against the City of Pittsburgh was Anna Nichols, a passenger on the bus.
Only the Perrys and Benches have filed a formal complaint thus far.
The 447-foot bridge plunged into a gorge in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park before dawn that morning, sending several vehicles and a full-size bus 100 feet into the ravine below.
Reports following the collapse showed that the bridge had been in disrepair and was rated a D+ by civil engineers in 2018. It was considered to be structurally deficient.
For months, the plaintiffs battled in court trying to identify the engineering firms involved in the inspections, maintenance and repairs of the bridge.
The City of Pittsburgh argued it was prohibited from releasing the documents because of the ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
However, in early January, the NTSB released thousands of pages of records it had obtained in the case, many of them the ones the plaintiffs wanted.
Among those records was a transcript of an August 2022 interview with a CDM Smith bridge inspection project manager. In it, he expressed frustration with the city for failing to complete high-priority repairs on the bridge.
According to records released in the case, Larson was awarded a $5.3 million contract from PennDOT to do inspections on bridges owned by the City of Pittsburgh in 2019.
Under Pennsylvania law, the City of Pittsburgh is capped at $500,000 in total damages, no matter how many plaintiffs are involved.
