City blocks lawyer’s request for bridge documents
A lawyer representing victims of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse said Thursday that the city of Pittsburgh denied his request for documents revealing the collapsed span’s troubled inspection history.
Peter Giglione, an attorney representing bus driver Daryl Luciani, said the documents would help determine who was responsible for the Jan. 28 collapse, which left nine people injured and six vehicles at the bottom of Fern Hollow — including the Pittsburgh Regional Transit (formerly Port Authority) bus Mr. Luciani was driving that morning.
But the city denied Mr. Giglione’s request, arguing that the National Transportation Safety Board has the authority to prevent it from releasing past inspection, maintenance and payment documents — some dating back a decade — because they are part of the NTSB’s ongoing investigation into the collapse.
“We’re basically saying, ‘We need stuff dating back to 2011,’ and it has nothing to do with the NTSB investigation,” Mr. Giglione said in an interview Thursday evening. “We want stuff that was publicly available long before this bridge collapsed.”
He added, “Just because the NTSB says, ‘We’re looking at it now’ does not shield it from being disclosed to us.”
According to Mr. Giglione, those documents might name third-party contractors that were hired for inspections and maintenance by the city of Pittsburgh, which owned the bridge — although the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has official oversight on inspections.
In a Post-Gazette report, documents released in a Right to Know request by PennDOT showed that in October 2021 — four months before the bridge collapsed — inspectors found a long list of decaying conditions under the bridge.
Mr. Giglione said he wants a more complete picture of the bridge’s past maintenance.
For example, the attorney would like to know who installed the steel cables that replaced some of the removed supports underneath the bridge.
“When you’re a plaintiff like we all are, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got all the parties properly named — you have to identify everybody that contributed to the negligent act,” he said.
He added that Pennsylvania
law requires an expert to be hired in claims of professional negligence, which his team could potentially file. But without knowing who worked on the bridge, Mr. Giglione said he won’t know which expert — an engineer, for example — to consult.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Philip Ignelzi gave Mr. Giglione’s team 30 days to file a brief on the city’s response to their motion.
After that, the city will then have 30 days to file its own response, Mr. Giglione said.
Mr. Giglione admitted the city has “legitimate arguments” when it comes its position.
“But I don’t understand why they’re so hesitant to give us the identities of the proper parties,” he said, “other than the fact that the NTSB may be sort of holding them back.”