Lawyers in suit over Surfide collapse reveal huge settlement: $997M
MIAMI — In a surprisingly swift resolution of the Champlain Towers South class-action lawsuit, relatives of victims and survivors of the Surfside condo collapse have reached a settlement that will pay them nearly $1 billion, a state court judge was told Wednesday.
The comprehensive settlement announced in Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman’s courtroom effectively closes the litigation phase of the case. Still to be decided is the share survivors and family members of the 98 victims will receive.
“We have gotten $997 million in proposed settlements before you — and it could be a billion before the end of the week,” said Harley S. Tropin, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs. “We will be done.
The money will be distributed. These victims will get some measure of relief.”
Hanzman hoped to have the case resolved before the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the 136-unit oceanfront building in Surfside that fell at 1:22 a.m. on June 24.
“The result achieved and the speed is beyond extraordinary,” Hanzman said. “When this case first came in this court I told everyone this wouldn’t be business as usual. This was a tragedy of unspeakable proportions. If we didn’t have the right people handling this case it would be a 10year slog with tens of millions in attorneys’ fees.”
Plaintiffs settled with 10 defendants, including developers of the condominium next door, engineers, a law firm, the Champlain South condo association and their insurers.
They include 8701 Collins Development, Terra Group, Terra World Investments, John Moriarty and Associations of Florida, NV5, DeSimone Consulting Engineers, Morabito Consultants, the town of Surfside, Becker and Poliakoff and Champlain Towers South Condominium Association.
The last major defendants to settle were the developer, Terra Group, and general contractor, John Moriarty and Associates, of the adjacent ultra-luxury, Renzo Piano-designed Eighty Seven Park condo, located just south of the Surfside municipal boundary bordering Miami Beach. They were accused in the litigation of destabilizing Champlain South during construction in 2016 when metal sheet piles were driven into the ground about 12 feet from the Surfside condo’s perimeter wall around the pool deck.
They will pay an undisclosed sum to the plaintiffs without admitting any negligence. Champlain South residents claimed the vibrations that rattled their building — knocking pictures off their walls and throwing one off a treadmill — played a role in the collapse. Five years later, the pool deck at Champlain South broke away from the structural wall near where the pile-driving occurred. Seven minutes after the deck caved in, half of the 12-story tower collapsed, killing 98 people inside.
The Eighty Seven Park firms deny their work had anything to do with the collapse in 2021. They said the vibrations, which were measured and monitored, were too low to have caused “structural damage to any portion of Champlain Towers South.”