PROVIDENCE – After poring over 100,000 pages of documents for weeks, Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s legal team said Friday that it has decided to proceed with a civil lawsuit against one or more companies for negligent work that led to the closure of the westbound side of the Washington Bridge.
But which companies and how many haven't been disclosed by attorneys Max Wistow and Jonathan Savage.
“While we are continuing to finalize the details, we now can say with certainty that we intend to file suit against responsible parties to seek financial recovery on behalf of the State," the lawyers said in a statement Friday afternoon. "That lawsuit will be brought on or before Aug. 19.
They said no further details will be released until the lawsuit is filed.
At the same time, t
he R.I. Department of Transportation received 11 responses to its request for information on replacing the westbound side of the Washington Bridge, according to a report by WPRI-TV CBS 12 Friday.
RIDOT on July 19 released a request for information on the state’s bidding portal, soliciting engineering and public infrastructure experts in the private sector to provide insight into why a previous request for proposals to rebuild the westbound side of the bridge failed to recruit a single bid.
RIDOT officials said then they hoped the feedback gleaned from private contractors would help guide another request for proposals and allow the state to get clarifications about designs, costs, timelines and other project conditions.
The 11 companies that responded to the request are:
- American Bridge Co.
- American Council of Engineering Companies of Rhode Island
- GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc.
- Halmar International LLC
- International Business Machines Corp.
- J.H. Lynch & Sons Inc.
- Kiewit Infrastructure Co.
- Michael Baker International, Inc.
- Michels Construction, Inc.
- Skanska USA Civil Northeast Inc.
- Walsh Construction Company II LLC.
Though the information the companies provided has not been released publicly, a RIDOT spokesperson told WPRI the responses “would be subject to the Access to Public Records Act at the time of a final contract award of a subsequent, related procurement.”
The abrupt closure of the bridge’s westbound side in December, which connects Interstate 195 from Rhode Island’s East Bay to Providence, has disrupted traffic and businesses. In March, the state announced that the westbound side needed to be replaced, with Gov. Daniel J. McKee proclaiming that a “day of reckoning” will come to hold those responsible for allowing the bridge to deteriorate to the point of near failure.
Part of the "day of reckoning" was a potential lawsuit against contractors involved with the bridge.
in a press conference last month, Wistow said while the case involves “very complex technical and engineering issues,” the legal aspect is straightforward, likening it to a lawsuit brought against a medical company for negligent or fraudulent actions.
Wistow said at the time that potential targets go back several state administrations.
“Without any question, this goes way back before McKee,” he said.
Wistow was a principal attorney in the 38 Studios case that led to a $61 million settlement, and he has been involved in several multiparty lawsuits, including a $176 million payout for victims of the fatal Station nightclub fire in West
Warwick in 2003.
Savage, a partner at Providence-based
Savage Law Partners LLP specializing in construction law and public-sector litigation, said in July that the lawyers are withholding investigatory findings related to the bridge’s failure because it may be subject to discovery. Instead, they will wait until a judge orders its release.
“That process will bring out a great deal of information the taxpayers are interested in through litigation, should we go in that direction,” said Savage. “We are not going to filter any of that information and try to evaluate [ourselves] what happened. We are going to go where the facts lead us.”
Regarding the bids for the construction of a new bridge,
RIDOT Director Peter Alviti said in a July 9 press briefing that the department had purposely crafted the initial request for proposals in a manner that shifted more of the liability to the contractor while increasing oversight and reporting requirements, a strategy he acknowledged may have played a role in the early lack of interest in bidding for the job.
“We asked the bidders to assume more risk than normal,” he said. ”We pushed the envelope beyond what the industry was willing to bear.”
The opening question included in the four-page document speaks directly to what state officials wish to know: “Were you aware of this RFP opportunity? If you were aware of the RFP but chose not to respond, please provide your rationale. If external factors influenced your decision not to submit a response, please explain.”
Succeeding questions touch on respondents’ view of the previous RFP’s timeline, scope of work, state incentives and disincentives, and asks whether a design-build contract is “the most appropriate procurement method for this project or is there an alternative contracting method that may be more suitable?”
The state has awarded Aetna Bridge Co. a tentative $45.8 million contract to demolish the westbound side of the bridge, scheduled to begin in the fall.
(Updated to add information that Gov. Daniel J. McKee's legal team had determined that it would file a lawsuit "against responsible parties" in circumstances that led to the partial closure of the Washington Bridge.)
Only four of those eleven companies are bridge builders.