Crime & Safety
Surfside Condo Collapse Victims To Receive $997M Settlement: Report
The settlement was agreed to at a court hearing Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
SURFSIDE, FL — Victims from the collapse of a Surfside, Florida, condominium building have reached a proposed $997 million settlement in a court hearing Wednesday for a lawsuit, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Defendants include insurers, developers and an engineering firm that warned of the tower's structural issues. The settlement is much larger than legal experts were predicting, according to the report.
A large section of the 12-story Champlain Towers South building collapsed early in the morning of June 24, 2021, and emergency personnel searched the rubble for days for survivors. By the end of recovery efforts, 98 people died in the incident.
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Officials had deemed the building structurally unsafe in January 2021, and the remaining portion of the building was demolished in early July.
All but one of the defendants is part of the settlement, according to The Real Deal. GeoSonics, the vibration monitoring firm for neighboring condominium complex Eighty Seven Park, is the lone remaining defendant. The settlement could reach over $1 billion as negotiations with GeoSonics continue, according to the report.
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Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman, who is presiding over all litigation regarding the Surfside condo collapse, approved an $83 million settlement for Champlain Towers South unit owners on March 30, court documents show.
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