Global Fastener News

Powers Fasteners Seeks Special Prosecutor As Probe Reaches $1m

Jason Sandefur

Attorneys for Powers Fasteners filed a motion to dismiss the indictment or disqualify the Massachusetts attorney general from the case involving the death of a woman in Boston’s Big Dig tunnel.
NY-based Powers Fasteners, which manufactured the epoxy blamed for the July 2006 tunnel collapse, was indicted for one count of involuntary manslaughter. The company has pleaded not guilty.
Powers attorneys Martin Levin and Max Stern of Stern, Shapiro, Weissberg & Garin are seeking the appointment of an independent prosecutor “because Attorney General (Martha) Coakley has an irreconcilable conflict of interest,” the company said in a statement.
Powers Fasteners claimed that “while the Attorney General was making the determination to criminally charge Powers, she has been seeking to advance the Commonwealth’s ability to collect as much money as possible – from Powers and others – to cover the significant cost overruns caused at least in part by the state’s own mismanagement of the Big Dig.”
“A finding of guilt would have a significant impact on a civil outcome in this case, as well as impacting Powers’ reputation,” Powers communications consultant Karen Schwartzman told FastenerNews.com.
Powers, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and eight other companies also face a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the woman’s family.
Milena Del Valle, 38, was crushed to death when about 26 tons of concrete ceiling panels dropped on her car. Her husband, who was driving, survived the collapse.
In the last year, the state of Massachusetts reportedly has spent nearly $1 million on a special prosecutor to investigate the tunnel collapse. Special assistant attorney general Paul Ware, head of litigation at the Boston office of the law firm Goodwin Procter, was hired in March to investigate the incident. Ware and two fellow attorneys reportedly are each billing the state $525 per hour, prompting one state lawmaker to call the situation “a nightmare for taxpayers.”
Big Dig project manager Bechtel/ Parsons Brinckerhoff has offered the state more than $300 million to avoid criminal charges.
“The only reason that our company has been indicted is that unlike others implicated in this tragedy, we don’t have enough money to buy our way out,” Powers Fasteners president Jeffrey Powers stated after the indictment was announced.
Powers Fasteners offered $8 million to settle the case before the charge was announced, but the “offer did not satisfy Coakley’s demand that any settlement be painful,” according to the Boston Globe. Powers reportedly carries about $26 million worth of professional liability insurance.
Coakley has reportedly concluded that only Powers and the two companies that managed the Big Dig – Bechtel Co. and Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas – were criminally negligent, the Boston Globe reports. However, only Powers Fasteners has been charged.
By singling out Powers Fasteners, Coakley’s assessment of the case contradicts a National Transportation Safety Board report that spread broad blame for the ceiling collapse.
The NTSB investigation found that designers and construction crews had not considered that the epoxy holding 5/8″ diameter threaded steel anchor rods embedded about five inches in the tunnel’s concrete roof could creep under load. The NTSB also specifically faulted ceiling designer Gannett Fleming for failing to stipulate which kind of epoxy to use during installation. �2007/2008 FastenerNews.com