PROVIDENCE – Seven insurers and a previous owner of The Station have offered nearly $270,000 to settle civil claims arising from the fatal fire that engulfed the West Warwick nightclub in 2003, according to papers filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
The eight defendants are the last against whom complaints are still pending in the lawsuits – apart from a few complaints the judge is expected to dismiss – Associated Press said today. Their offers therefore may clear the way for the calculation of payouts to fire survivors and victims’ relatives.
The insurers – Essex Insurance Co., a Markel Corp. unit; Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London; Surplex Underwriters Inc.; V.B. Gifford & Co. Inc.; Gresham & Associates of R.I. Inc.; Gresham & Associates of Rhode Island Inc.; and Anchor Solutions Co. Inc. – had been accused of failing to adequately inspect the club before insuring it. The judge in the case had already dismissed those claims, but an appeal by plaintiffs was pending. The insurers offered settlements totaling $262,500.
The former property owner, Howard Julian, whom plaintiffs accused of installing defective insulation at the club, offered $3,000.
None of the parties in the latest round of offers admitted any wrongdoing in the case, and none responded to media requests for comment, the AP said.
One hundred people were killed and hundreds injured in the fire on Feb. 20, 2003, which began when concert fireworks lit by Great White tour manager Daniel M. Biechele ignited foam insulation installed as soundproofing by club owners Michael and Jeffrey Derderian.
The Derderian brothers contend the pyrotechnics were set off without their approval, a claim the band denies, and say they purchased and installed the foam without knowing it was flammable. In a plea agreement last fall, Michael Derderian got four years in prison and three on probation while Jeffrey Derderian got a suspended sentence.
Biechele pleaded guilty in 2006 to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter – one for each of the people killed by the fire – and was given a sentence of four years in prison, three on probation and 11 suspended.
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Last Tuesday, Great White offered $1 million, the maximum available under the band’s insurance policy. The ’80s rock group admitted no wrongdoing in the conflagration, in which one band member was killed. (READ MORE)
On Thursday, the Derderian brothers – whose liability was capped under a bankruptcy court ruling two years ago – offered $813,000 under their former nightclub’s policy with surplus-lines company Essex Insurance Corp., the brothers’ lawyer Anthony F. DeMarco, of Providence-based Reynolds, DeMarco & Boland Ltd., told the Business Insurance journal. The settlement offer would max out their club’s $1 million policy with Essex, because it previously had paid out $187,000 to fire victims or their families, DeMarco said.
Total settlement offers in the Feb. 20, 2003, fatal fire now stand at more than $176 million. But those offers all are tentative, requiring the approval of the court and the more than 300 plaintiffs, because the judge had tabled final action pending agreements with all defendants.
A special master appointed by the court last year – Duke University law professor Francis E. McGovern – will determine how to distribute the money among the more than 300 plaintiffs once the settlements are approved.
Information about the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island and its decisions, visit www.rid.uscourts.gov.
