Business files class-action suit against Dali managers in bridge collapse

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland on Thursday by a team of attorneys representing American Publishing LLC, an enterprise owned by a woman and her husband, who claim in court documents that their April profits plummeted as a direct result of the Key Bridge collapse.

The suit, filed as a class action, seeks to include all other businesses or individuals who were affected by the disaster.

Roy Mason, one of the lead attorneys on the case, said in an interview that class — if certified — could include thousands of affected businesses in the region.

Mason called the story of American Publishing and its owners, Karen and Charles Austin, a “harbinger.”

“It’s like the community has been stunned by what happened,” Mason said.

The class-action suit alleges that the Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and manager, Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., knowingly allowed an “unseaworthy” vessel to leave the port — a decision that American Publishing’s attorneys say negates the argument the companies made weeks ago that their monetary liability for the collapse should be limited to $43.6 million.

A spokesperson for Synergy Marine and Grace Ocean did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The filings come amid a flurry of legal activity in recent weeks, as the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland opened a criminal probe and maritime attorneys began teaming up with civil and government lawyers to seek accountability in court for the March 26 crash.

Earlier this week, attorneys representing Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) and the City Council — on behalf of the city’s residents — said in court documents also filed in Maryland’s federal court that the bridge’s collapse was caused by “negligence of the vessel’s crew and shoreside management.”

Thus far, the city and American Publishing are the only two entities to have responded in court to the joint petition filed by Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine in early April. But more activity is expected in the coming weeks and months.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) said in a statement Wednesday that his office has been “preparing for litigation” and appointed a special assistant attorney general to lead the effort. Brown said the office has been working with maritime attorneys on an interim basis until a permanent outside legal team is selected next week.

Brown toured the wreckage Wednesday as a team of maritime experts working for his office boarded the Dali to examine its damage and contents for about 10 hours, according to a statement from his office.

For the past month, the crew of the Dali, which is predominantly Indian and Sri Lankan, has remained aboard the massive container ship as investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Coast Guard and the FBI have searched the vessel and conducted interviews.

The NTSB probe began immediately after the crash, and officials have said the agency expects to release a preliminary report on its independent probe in early May.

Separately, the FBI obtained a search warrant and boarded the ship on April 15, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Department. Federal authorities have not said what they were searching for on the vessel, but in a statement Thursday, a faith-based advocacy organization called the Seamen’s Church Institute said that the FBI confiscated the crew’s cellphones as part of its ongoing investigation.

Even a month after the crash, much remains unknown about the Dali’s crew. The Seamen’s Church Institute said in its statement that staff members with the organization were able to board the ship in early April and that it has since dispatched a chaplain team with fluency in Hindi and Tamil. The chaplains worked with the Coast Guard to obtain replacement phones for the crew to mitigate their “sense of isolation” and to enable “communication with loved ones,” the SCI statement said.

Andrew Middleton, director of the local chapter of Apostleship of the Sea, said an inspector with the ITF Seafarers union and a representative from a Sri Lankan union were in Baltimore on Wednesday.

At least one surviving victim of the Key Bridge collapse, Julio Adrian Cervantes Suarez, and the families of two of the dead, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and José López, have retained their own attorneys from Stewart Miller Simmons Trial Attorneys and Kreindler & Kreindler, though they have not yet filed anything in court. Fuentes and López died after they fell into the Patapsco River. Cervantes, who also fell into the frigid waters, is the only person to survive the fall.

Thursday’s class-action filing cited the same Associated Press article mentioned in Baltimore City’s claim, in which someone identified as a “person with knowledge of the situation” told the publication that alarms on the Dali’s refrigerated containers sounded while the ship was docked in Baltimore.

Neither filing detailed any other evidence to support negligence claims.

Attorneys for the Austins wrote in the filings that their publishing business saw an 84 percent decrease in income when comparing April 2023 with April 2024. American Publishing has been operating since 2007, producing an Armed Forces Directory for local military families and a cybersecurity magazine that relies heavily on collaboration and advertising of local businesses that were also affected by the collapse, according to court documents.