尽管一周多后搜寻仍在继续，寻找倒塌的尚普兰南塔楼残破废墟中的生命迹象，但寻找原因和责任人的过程已经在佛罗里达州的法律系统中展开。
当局已经对海滨公寓大楼的倒塌展开刑事和民事调查，该大楼的倒塌导致至少28人确认死亡，超过117人下落不明。迈阿密戴德州检察官凯瑟琳·费尔南德斯·朗德尔承诺将此事尽快提交大陪审团，他们可以建议刑事指控或简单地调查原因以建议改革。
至少有五起诉讼是代表幸存或害怕死亡的居民提起的。一名参与诉讼的律师表示，此次崩溃引发了人们对基础设施问题以及我们对相关责任人的信任的广泛担忧。
“我们应该能够走进建筑物，而不用担心它们会在我们周围摇摇欲坠，也应该知道我们所爱的人晚上可以睡觉，而不用担心他们会在睡梦中从12层楼跌落到地下，”杰弗里·古德曼说，他位于费城的公司代表失踪居民哈罗德·罗森伯格的孩子提起了诉讼。
迄今提起的诉讼指控尚普兰塔楼南共管协会，在某些情况下是一名当地建筑师和工程师，因未能解决早在2018年就注意到的严重结构问题而玩忽职守。Surfside镇建筑检查员也参与了讨论，古德曼的公司已经发出通知，计划将该镇列为被告。
古德曼说:“建筑业主、建筑师、工程师、检查员和安全专业人员的作用是确保建筑物对居住者来说是安全的。
在周五的听证会上，鉴于董事会成员遭受的创伤，一名法官任命了一名接管人来代表共管协会的利益，其中一名成员仍然失踪。法官被告知，该委员会约有4800万美元的保险，而海滨土地的价值为3000万至5000万美元。
法官说，他希望诉讼能尽快解决，也许在一年内。在此之前，他授权接管人、律师迈克尔·戈德堡向居民每人提供1万美元的临时住房，2000美元用于支付丧葬费。
代理罗森博格家族的律师罗伯特·蒙格卢齐(Robert Mongeluzzi)表示，此类案件不仅仅是钱的问题。
蒙格卢齐说:“他们想让这成为一项调查，以找出发生了什么。“我们相信证据仍然存在。”
公寓协会的律师没有回复寻求置评的电子邮件，董事会成员本人也没有回复。
此前一个可能存在法律相似性的案例涉及2013年费城一座正在被拆除的建筑的无支撑墙倒塌。它倒在邻近的救世军商店上，造成6人死亡，13人受伤，一名妇女在13小时后被发现还活着，失去了双腿，并在今年去世前被迫忍受了30多次手术。
在随后的审判中，一个民事陪审团认定救世军、大楼的所有者和他的建筑师负有主要责任，双方同意支付2.27亿美元的损害赔偿金。
在刑事方面，建筑师因与检察官合作而获得豁免权，而一名食品推车操作员出身的承包商被判三级重罪谋杀罪名不成立，但因过失杀人罪被判处15至30年徒刑;一名因受伤服用处方药的叉车司机也因此入狱。
坍塌也促使费城市派遣检查员去检查拆除现场，并导致了更严格的规定。
在佛罗里达州，一个大陪审团仍在审查2018年佛罗里达州国际大学一座人行天桥坍塌事故，该事故造成6人死亡。1996年，ValuJet 592在大沼泽地意外坠毁，造成110人死亡，随后，过失杀人和三级重罪谋杀指控被提起。
加州奥兰治县查普曼大学研究大规模灾难的侵权法教授丹尼斯·本德(Denis Bender)认为，在这类案件中，越来越多的人不仅寻求损害赔偿，还寻求刑事指控，通常是过失指控。这可能是因为，我们越来越多地看到它们实时或接近实时地发生，就像上周从Surfside向世界各地传送的令人痛心的图像一样。
“我认为这是因为媒体和社交媒体而增加的——不一定是因为外面有鼓点，但每个人都对他们所看到的感到震惊。这是正义的呼声，”宾德说。
他说:“在像这样壮观的事情上，在当今世界，找茬的压力很大。“而且已经有足够的证据(在Surfside)表明人们做出了错误的决定。”
Building collapse lawsuits seek to get answers, assign blame
Even as the search continues over a week later for signs of life in the mangled debris of the fallen Champlain Towers South, the process of seeking answers about why it happened and who is to blame is already underway in Florida's legal system.
Authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the collapse of the oceanfront condominium building, which left at least 28 confirmed dead and more than 117 unaccounted for. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle pledged to bring the matter soon before grand jurors, who could recommend criminal charges or simply investigate the cause to suggest reforms.
And at least five lawsuits have been filed on behalf of residents who survived or are feared dead. One lawyer involved in the litigation said the collapse raises widespread concerns about infrastructure issues and the trust we put in those responsible for them.
“We deserve to be able to walk into buildings without worrying that they’re going to come crumbling around us and to know that our loved ones can go to bed at night without worrying that they’re going to plummet 12 stories to the ground below in their sleep,” said Jeffrey Goodman, whose Philadelphia-based firm filed suit on behalf of the children of missing resident Harold Rosenberg.
The lawsuits filed to date accuse the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, and in some cases a local architect and engineer, of negligence for failing to address serious structural problems noted as far back as 2018. A Surfside town building inspector had also been part of the discussions, and Goodman’s firm has given notice of plans to add the town as a defendant.
“The role of building owners and architects and engineers and inspectors and safety professionals is to make sure that buildings are safe for their occupants to be in,” Goodman said.
At a hearing Friday, a judge appointed a receiver to represent the condominium association’s interests given the trauma experienced by board members, one of whom remains missing. The board has about $48 million in insurance coverage, while the oceanfront land is valued at $30 million to $50 million, the judge was told.
The judge said he hoped the litigation could be resolved quickly, perhaps within a year. Until then, he authorized the receiver, attorney Michael Goldberg, to provide $10,000 each to residents for temporary housing and $2,000 to cover funeral expenses.
Attorney Robert Mongeluzzi, who also represents the Rosenberg family and is seeking access to the site, said cases such as these are not just about the money.
“They want to make this a quest to find out what happened,” Mongeluzzi said. “We believe that evidence is still there.”
Attorneys for the condominium association did not respond to emails seeking comment, nor did board members themselves.
One prior case with possible legal parallels involves the 2013 collapse in Philadelphia of an unbraced wall of a building that was being demolished. It toppled onto an adjacent Salvation Army store, killing six people and injuring 13, with one woman found alive 13 hours later losing both legs and forced to endure more than 30 surgeries before her death this year.
In the trials that followed, a civil jury found the Salvation Army, the building's owner and his architect largely responsible, and the parties agreed to pay $227 million in damages.
On the criminal side, the architect received immunity in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors, while a food cart operator-turned-contractor was acquitted of third-degree felony murder charges but sentenced to 15 to 30 years for involuntary manslaughter; a forklift driver who was taking prescription drugs for an injury also went to prison.
The collapse also prompted the city of Philadelphia to send inspectors out to examine demolition sites and led to toughened regulations.
In Florida, a grand jury is still reviewing the 2018 collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University that killed six people. And both manslaughter and third-degree felony murder charges were filed following the 1996 accidental crash of ValuJet 592 in the Everglades that killed 110 people.
Denis Bender, a tort law professor at Chapman University in Orange County, Calif, who studies wide-scale disasters, sees a growing tendency in such cases not just to seek damages but to pursue criminal charges, often for negligence. That may be because, more and more, we see them happen in real or near-real time, as happened with the harrowing images beamed from Surfside around the world in the last week.
“I think it’s increasing because of the media and social media — not necessarily because there’s a drumbeat out there, but everybody’s horrified by what they can see. And there’s this cry for justice,” Binder said.
“On something spectacular like this, in today’s world, there’s great pressure to find fault,” he said. “And there’s enough evidence already (in Surfside) that people have made bad decisions.”
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Dale reported from Philadelphia and Anderson from St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale
