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Judge Axes Construction Cos. Miami Bridge Collapse Suit
Law360 (March 2, 2021, 10:49 PM EST) A Florida federal judge on Tuesday tossed Magnum Construction Management s suit against the engineering firms that conducted a design review of a Miami pedestrian bridge that collapsed and killed six people in 2018, agreeing with the firms that the construction company s suit is a shotgun pleading.
U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga dismissed Magnum s suit against the Louis Berger Group, WSP USA Solutions and other engineering design firms, but allowed the construction management company to amend its complaint within 14 days. The judge said that Magnum s lawsuit is a shotgun pleading because Magnum failed to properly differentiate between the multiple companies listed as defendants in the.
President of construction company in FIU bridge collapse: ‘We wish we would have done more’
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Fla. – Munilla Construction Management was one of the companies behind the deadly Florida International University’s pedestrian bridge collapse. It has since rebranded Magnum Construction Management.
Daniel Munilla, the president of the family-owned company, said he wrestles with what could have been done differently to prevent the March 15, 2018 tragedy.
“We have had many restless nights,” Munilla said. “We wish we would have done more.”
Munilla said they were aware of a crack in the structure that January.
“We saw the concern. Every day they documented it. We were assured by a world-renowned designer that it wasn’t a safety concern,” Munilla said.
On the outskirts of Kabul, we detour around a bridge that recently collapsed. The asphalt starts to fall apart, and four lanefuls of traffic are soon jockeying for position on what’s left of the two-lane highway. Ghafari’s bulletproof SUV lurches to an abrupt halt, boxed in by incoming trucks on one side and impatient southbound cars on the other: a bad situation. Her driver jumps out, AK-47 slung over his shoulder, to clear a path out of the jam, leaving the mayor unguarded.
“The Taliban like to hide and attack from the trees and homes along the road,” Ghafari says, scanning her surroundings through the bullet-riddled windows of her car. “Anything can happen here.”