Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorney Blog - Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis LLP

The Big Dig, one of the modern world's most ambitious construction projects of the modern era has been touted as a model for future development of urban areas, especially cities like Philadelphia with a historic city center that makes it difficult to construct accommodations for increasing traffic volume. Instead, with both timetable and budget overruns, the project has more often been cited as how not to renovate a city center.

It certainly represents a model of how to create a deadly construction accident. According to failure analysis experts, from its design to its execution, it seems the Big Dig Tunnel was doomed for all of the following reasons:

· Its initial design of a suspended ceiling made of concrete was a mistake

· The adhesive chosen to secure the ceiling anchor bolds was inadequate to the task, as engineers should have known, since the same epoxy failed in another tunnel ceiling in 1999

· Engineers working at the site simply accepted the certification provided by the supplier, rather than investigating the material

With these circumstances, the project was poorly designed and managed, leading to the wrongful death of one person. However, the tragedy could have been much worse, with a much larger collapse that led to thousands of deaths.

The Big Dig tunnel collapse has not become a model case for construction accident litigation, however, with most of the contractors buying their way out of criminal charges with large cash settlements, and the only company being held criminally responsible for their negligence is the epoxy manufacturer, who actually warned that the epoxy had a low creep resistance and might lead to failure over time.

If you or a loved one has suffered as a result of a construction accident, contact the experienced construction accident lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation.