Lawsuit against condo details survivor’s experience.
Raysa Rodriguez was asleep in her condominium on the ninth floor. Unbeknownst to her and more than 100 others, the building was only moments away from collapsing.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday evening on behalf of Rodriguez against the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association gives a detailed account of the tragedy that occurred inside the building last week.
A noise woke her up. She found herself in the middle of the room, unsure of how she got there, according to the lawsuit complaint.
Rodriguez described that the building “swayed like a sheet of paper.” She reached for a lamp in her bedroom, attempting to turn it on, but there was no electricity.
As she stepped outside on her balcony, still in pajamas, she saw nothing but dust, the complaint says. In the hallway outside her unit, elevators had no doors, a concrete column stuck through the hallway from floor to ceiling, no neighbors answered her desperate knocks.
“I run to the exit, open the doors that lead to the outside stairwell and saw the devastation,” Rodriguez recounted in the complaint. “The beachside of Champlain had collapsed, pancaked. I screamed in horror.”
Rodriguez said she heard a woman screaming from the rubble, “Please help me! Please help me! Don’t leave me here!” But Rodriguez could not see her through the pitch black dark.
A neighbor, her 10-year-old son and their Maltese puppy stood outside Rodriguez’s door while she was inside changing out of her pajamas and banged.
They opened the door to the stairwell to stop at the floor below to rescue a neighbor in her 80s. The stairs were cracked and disconnected from the building, the complaint says.
The group moved as carefully as possible down the stairs. The elderly neighbor had to use her walker. As Rodriguez reached the first-floor exit near the pool deck, a pile of rubble too heavy to move blocked the path out.
She quickly headed to the parking garage where she heard the sound of water rushing. That wasn’t an option either, she realized.
A second floor balcony was their only hope, and the group emerged from the broken building, luckier than most.
Rodriguez wants to represent more than just herself, the lawsuit says. She is representing every resident in the building that morning.
Previous complaints of issues
Since the collapse, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and other officials have called for an expeditious search for what caused the collapse. Cause for the collapse could come from “the unfit material used during the construction of the building” that progressively deteriorated throughout the years “due to the neglect of the Building Association/Management, and in the end resulting in the collapse of the building,” the lawsuit says.
“While the reason of the collapse is unclear, from what investigators know, the building appears to have fallen in a progressive, or so called ‘pancake,’ collapse,” the lawsuit says. “Progressive collapse can be defined as collapse of all or a large part of a structure precipitated by failure or damage of a relatively small part of it.”
The condo association failed to carry out its management, maintenance and repair responsibilities, the lawsuit claims, and the condo association knew or should have known there was a “foreseeable risk of unreasonable harm” to Rodriguez and those in similar situations.
Construction on the roof of the building and construction at a neighboring building, Eighty Seven Park, could have contributed to the collapse, the lawsuit alleges.
“During the construction of the condominium high rise, from the period of October 2017 through March 2020, residents of Champlain Towers often complained to Defendant of the building and grounds shaking during construction activities,” the complaint says.
William Espinosa oversaw the maintenance of the building from 1995 to 2000. He remembered the parking garage filling with “a concerning amount of seawater” during high tides, sometimes as much as two feet of water pooling in the garage for extended periods of time.
Despite his efforts in warning the building management about the issue, the building managers did not investigate the matter nor tried to resolve the issue,” the lawsuit says. “Unfortunately, Defendant’s response was to merely tell Espinosa that the issue had been occurring for years.”
Though Rodriguez’s suit is the third to be filed in Miami-Dade County court records against the condominium association since the collapse, the association has been sued before, the lawsuit says. Resident Matilde Zaidenweber sued the building in 2001 and 2015 for damages to her unit caused by water seeping in through cracks from the outside wall of the building.
Rodriguez, too, had issues while living there, according to the lawsuit. She took photos after a chunk of concrete fell out of the garage ceiling and landed near her car.
“It’s extremely important to start this process right away to protect all residents and their relatives and get to the bottom of exactly happened,” the Moskowitz Law Firm, the firm representing Rodriguez, said in a statement. “The legal and class action process ensures that all evidence is preserved and all class members are treated fairly.”
Lawsuit: Cracking, exposed rebar, waterproofing issues
The lawsuit alleges two counts — negligence and breach of contract.
“Defendant did not only fail to repair the building and ensure the safety of it, but also it failed to disclose to its residents the fact that the building was in an unsafe condition that threatened the safety of their residents,” the lawsuit says.
The condo association “was so grossly negligent, reckless and wanting in care that it constituted a conscious disregard and indifference to the life, safety, or rights of persons exposed to such conduct,” the lawsuit says.
The second count, breach of contract, claims that the condo association failed to repair and replace elements of the building and portions of the units that contribute to the support of the building, according to the lawsuit.
A 2018 report by Morabito Consultants found failures in the building causing “major structural damages” and said certain areas of the building needed repairs in a “timely fashion,” the lawsuit says. Cracking in the building, exposed and deteriorated rebar and failed waterproofing in the pool deck area were among the issues.
A call for comment to the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association was not answered.
The lawsuit says Rodriguez is seeking an unspecified monetary relief and a jury trial.