US Justice Department files lawsuit against owner and operator of containership Dali

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a civil claim in the US District Court for the District of Maryland against Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, the Singaporean corporations that owned and operated Dali, the containership that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, earlier this year.

The suit seeks to recover over US$100 million in costs the United States incurred in responding to the disaster, which left six people dead, and for clearing the entangled wreck and bridge debris from the navigable channel so the port could reopen.

The United States led the response efforts of dozens of federal, state, and local agencies to remove about 50,000 tonnes of steel, concrete, and asphalt from the channel and from Dali itself. While these removal operations were underway, the claim alleges that the United States also cleared a series of temporary channels to start relieving the bottleneck at the port and mitigate some of the economic devastation caused by accident.

The Fort McHenry Channel was cleared by June 10, and the Port of Baltimore was once again open for commercial navigation.

"The owner and operator of Dali were well aware of vibration issues on the vessel that could cause a power outage," said Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer. "But instead of taking necessary precautions, they did the opposite.

"Out of negligence, mismanagement, and, at times, a desire to cut costs, they configured the ship’s electrical and mechanical systems in a way that prevented those systems from being able to quickly restore propulsion and steering after a power outage. As a result, when Dali lost power, a cascading set of failures led to disaster."

The DOJ said the lawsuit specifically asserts that none of the four means that should have been available to help steer the ship — the propeller, rudder, anchor, or bow thruster — worked when they were needed to avert or even mitigate this disaster.

"This was an entirely avoidable catastrophe, resulting from a series of eminently foreseeable errors made by the owner and operator of Dali,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. "The suit seeks to recover the costs incurred by the United States in responding to this disaster, which include removing the bridge parts from the channel and those parts that were entangled with the vessel, as well as abating the substantial risk of oil pollution."

The Justice Department’s claim also seeks punitive damages to deter the owner and operator of Dali and others.

"This accident happened because of the careless and grossly negligent decisions made by Grace Ocean and Synergy, who recklessly chose to send an unseaworthy vessel to navigate a critical waterway and ignored the risks to American lives and the nation’s infrastructure," explained Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Chetan Patil of the Civil Division.

The department’s claim is part of a legal action the owner and operator of Dali initiated shortly after the tragedy, in which they seek exoneration or limitation of their liability to approximately US$44 million.