All but one firm agrees to FIU bridge collapse settlement

The families of victims and survivors of the Florida International University (FIU) bridge collapse which killed six people and injured eight in March 2018 have reached monetary settlements with all but one of the companies named in the incident.

According to a report from the Miami Herald, the lone holdout is engineering firm Louis Berger, a consultant hired to verify the integrity and design of the bridge.

Twenty-three subcontractors in total have signed on to the deal announced in Miami-Dade circuit court this week, which would require each of them to pay into a fund set aside for those affected by the bridge collapse.

The settlements have to be finalized as part of the bankruptcy case for Munilla Construction Management (MCM), the general contractor on the FIU bridge. MCM reached a deal with insurers to pay up to $42 million to the victims and their families back in May.

However, an attorney for one of the victims told the Herald that if Berger does not sign on to the agreement, the case could continue to be dragged out and would potentially delay payout to survivors for over a year.

Louis Berger was one of multiple companies implicated as being responsible for the bridge collapse in a report issued earlier this summer by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which laid most of the blame on FIGG Bridge Engineers as the bridge's designer.

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SOURCE: The Miami Herald