First civil suit filed in bridge collapse

Seriously injured survivor claims reckless negligence

MIAMI — Two days after the last victim’s body was removed from a collapsed bridge near Florida International University, the first civil lawsuit stemming from the tragedy has been filed — and it claims reckless negligence on the part of the companies who oversaw the bridge’s design and construction.

Marquise Rashaad Hepburn, a 24-year-old resident of Miami-Dade County, was “seriously injured” on his way to work as he rode his bicycle underneath the pedestrian bridge spanning Southwest Eighth Street near the West Miami-Dade campus of Florida International University, according to a formal complaint filed Monday morning in MiamiDade circuit court.

Following a stress-test of the bridge, which had sustained cracking days before, the massive, 174-foot concrete slab came crashing down just before 2 p.m. on Thursday. The eight-lane segment of the Tamiami Trail below remained open during the testing.

The driver of a car trying to avoid falling concrete swerved into Hepburn on the southern end of the span. Hepburn survived the crash and the collapse, but was hospitalized with undisclosed injuries.

Six people died in the collapse, including motorists, passengers and one construction worker. Five victims were pulled from the rubble on Friday and Saturday, while one died at a local hospital.

Many of their vehicles were flattened and left unrecognizable.

Hepburn hired the personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, based in Orlando and is suing the companies involved in the design, construction and oversight of the bridge “who undertook and allowed inherently dangerous construction activities to proceed without necessary safety precautions.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what may have caused the collapse and will then issue recommendations on how to prevent it from happening again.

Miami-Dade Police are also conducting a homicide investigation.