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Skanska Loses Federal Lawsuit Over Hurricane Sally Barge Damage
December 29, 2021
Skanska USA has lost a lawsuit in federal court over damage caused by multiple barges during Hurricane Sally.
The decision handed down Wednesday from Judge Lacey A. Collier states Skanska was negligent and cannot limit liability under a maritime law.
The order allows state lawsuits to proceed seeking financial relief that have been filed by almost 1,000 others, including businesses, homeowners, governments and others claiming direct loss due to the barges or the destruction of a portion of the Pensacola Bay Bridge.
Collier rejected Skanska’s argument that it was caught off guard by the fact that Hurricane Sally would strongly impact Pensacola.
“While Pensacola may not have been the most likely recipient of a direct strike during the time Skanska made its decision, the threat of tropical force winds remained a distinct possibility. It is difficult to accept Skanska’s expression of surprise over the turn of events when at the time the Pensacola Bay area was under a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch,” the ruling stated. “Moreover, Skanska’s Hurricane Plan directed that the barges be relocated to Butcherpen Cove in the very situation presented by Hurricane Sally.”
Comments
17 Responses to “Skanska Loses Federal Lawsuit Over Hurricane Sally Barge Damage”
Skanska was responsible. They didn’t follow their own guidelines. Many businesses lost thousands of dollars an some their businesses, due to the added time the bridge was closed. Not to mention the long commute many people had daily to get to work.
By nature (LOL), weather is unpredictable. NOAA weather forecasts are a service and is meant as a guide – note the words “possible,” “likely,” “expected,” etc. Some people blame the government for everything instead of believing in personal responsibility.
To place blame on NOAA is utterly ridiculous at best. Anyone who has lived on the gulf coast KNOWS that predictions are never 100% and NOAA probably gives a disclaimer to cover themselves.
Now what’s going to happen is Skanska is going to pay a heck of alot more money in damages than it would have taken the Project Manager to order his crews to move the barges in the first place.
The cost to move all of the barges and rigging would have been miniscule.
And if Skanska survives the flood of lawsuits headed their way they may want to consider putting more storm prep time when they bid on a job.
I don’t blame Skanska. The blame should be with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration for erroneous predictions. Once the advisory came out that it would turn more, it was already too dangerous to put crews in the bay to move the barges.
Once again a government agency is to blame. This is quite simple. Obviously the many people who have lost money will blame Skanska regardless of facts and fight for lost monies. It’s all about the dollar and you have “bad big business” vs small town business and private citizens, who do you think a jury would side with- regardless of facts?
What any reasonable jury should do is declare a mistrial and issue instructions to the judge to find the NOAA at fault for issuing late warnings.
Skanska could only reasonably act upon the NOAA issued information. Is it Sankas fault the NOAAs predictions were wrong? Is it Skankas fault the NOAA failed to issue proper weather advisories? By NOAA being the government and the agency soley in charge of issuing advisories, watches and warnings, they are culpable in this.
DP, actually it’s People 1, Bad Business 0. You talk of periodic delays but what the huge delay caused when Skanska failed to prepare? People lost their businesses, and tens of thousands lost time in the extra commute, and money in extra gas and wear and tear on their cars – every day for a LONG time.
Skanska had a hurricane plan for this very situation and failed to follow it, so they should pay for the damage caused by their inaction. We’re all asked to prepare for bad weather, and businesses should, too.
I do agree with the negligence verdict. But saying businesses lost millions is not totally correct. It was already the end of the busy season. So all those businesses were already on the way after labor day to the winter low cash flow season. I don’t blame skanska if they argue the dollar amounts of each claim and weed thru the excess the lawyers will say the businesses lost when they really didn’t lose as much as they say they did because it was going into the low cash flow months. I’m all about what is fair just don’t inflate your numbers looking for free money.
Skanska is reliable for all damages occurred. The year before when I worked for them we pulled everything in the bay to the cove for a tropical storm that never hit. We were down for a week while everything was set back up but DOT gave Skanska extra time on the project. They didn’t meet the deadline anyways due to concrete being mixed wrong and cracking. So there was no reason not to secure the barges as was part of their plan to begin with. Good for the judge.
Skanska’s own hurricane plan called for the barges to be moved when sustained winds were expected to be above a certain threshold. They had plenty of notice of the winds and elected not to do the right thing. Pensacola was under Tropical Storm and Hurricane watch and warning well in advance of the the storm actually making landfall. Why submit a plan if you are not going to follow it?
“At what point are the weather guessers (forecasters) held responsible as well?”
Why and how would they be “held liable”? For not predicting that there is going to be a shift in the direction of the storm? No one can predict that with positive accuracy, and courts have, reasonably, not ruled in favor of the plaintiff.
Lawyers 1. People 0
This is liability paranoia. This will cause tremendous delays now in the way these projects are completed. Serious delays in the progress because of a storm threat. Completely stopping work to secure every vessel a week ahead and then setting up again. This is very similar to the insurance industry rules of not writing a policy for a person if a named storm is anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico. They win again.
At what point are the weather guessers (forecasters) held responsible as well?
Regardless were it was directed to go, what do we do when one even comes near? We prepare right? Part of owning a business such as Skanska is to take responsibility. You cant say they didnt have time. They did. Days before it occured they should have been prepared
The Northescambia article cites the important language.
While Pensacola may not have been the most likely recipient of a direct strike during the time Skanska made its decision, the threat of tropical force winds remained a distinct possibility. It is difficult to accept Skanska’s expression of surprise over the turn of events when at the time the Pensacola Bay area was under a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch,” the ruling stated. “Moreover, Skanska’s Hurricane Plan directed that the barges be relocated to Butcherpen Cove in the very situation presented by Hurricane Sally.”
Thank you judge! It will help the people heal!
@Henry – The plan was not to move the barges to Bayou Chico. As the article states, it was to move them to Butcherpen Cove, which is the area off the Gulf Islands National Seashore, basically the Gulf Breeze end of the Pensacola Bay Bridige.
This lawsuit was never about limiting the loss to those with direct damage, the barges were worth more than the direct damage done, it was about limiting what those with indirect damage could sue for.
I assume we will now see a filing for Reconsideration and when that fails, an appeal to the Federal Court in Atlanta. My guess is there will be no settlement in 2022.
No one knew how forceful Hurricane Sally would be. However, the responsible thing would be to prepare for the worst. Skanska did not do this, so of course the correct verdict was reached.
I don’t get it. By the time the storm had turned and was headed our way it was late in the afternoon and we were under TS advisories, which was expected for being on the edge of the storm path, but up to that point there was no expectation that we would get a direct strike from Sally.
There was no safe or logistical way to put crew in the bay at that point in the day to move the equipment to Bayou Chico overnight.
It sucks what happened and there are definitely lessons learned in regard to NHC warnings and marine traffic but I can’t really grasp the idea of Skanska being liable when they take warning cues from NOAA/NHC like the rest of us.
Playing devils advocate, lets say that Sally followed the forecasted path and went to NOLA but Skanska had decided days earlier to move all there equipment to Bayou Chico just in case and if we didn’t get any impact from Sally but it added another 4 to 6 weeks to the construction deadlines for the time off and then setting everything up again to restart construction I’m betting that people in our area would be going ballistic over Skanska delaying construction over a hurricane that wasn’t forecasted to come here.
With the previous idea in mind, would Skanska be penalized by DOT for having an additional delay because they decided to stop construction due to a storm that wasn’t forecasted to come here.
I just don’t see how the argument works to blame Skanska at the Federal Level when the very forecasting models Skanska makes decisions with are through the Federal Government?