State files sweeping lawsuit over Washington Bridge shutdown. Here's who is in the crosshairs.

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island is suing more than a dozen companies that were involved in the design, repair and inspection of the defunct westbound Washington Bridge, Attorney General Peter Neronha said Friday.

The civil suit , which Gov. Dan McKee hoped would bring a "day of reckoning" to those responsible for leaving the bridge on the verge of collapse last December, targets all the firms who inspected the bridge in the decade preceding its emergency closure, and the companies that were involved in the repair project that was underway when problems were found.

It also accuses Warwick-based Aetna Bridge Co. − the construction company that built the bridge in 1968 and is about to begin a $46-million state contract to demolish it − of negligently failing to save the span over the last three years.

Who is the lawsuit targeting?

The 13 defendants in the suit are:

• AECOM Technical Services
• Aetna Bridge Co.
• Aries Support Services
• Barletta Heavy Division
• Barletta/Aetna I-195 Washington Bridge North Phase 2 Joint Venture (the partnership created to repair the bridge in 2021)
• Collins Engineers
• Commonwealth Engineers Consultants
• Jacobs Engineering Group
• Michael Baker International
• Prime AE Group
• Steere Engineering
• Transystems Corporation
• Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB)

No state employees are targeted in the suit.

What are the allegations?

The lawsuit alleges various degrees of negligence, breach of contract and/or breach of fiduciary duty by the firms that allegedly failed to detect and report the bridge's serious deterioration.

Problems with the bridge were flagged as early as 1992 , the suit says, when Lichtenstein & Associates noted deterioration in the concrete drop-in beams and signs of distress in the grout and cantilever beams, the suit recounts. To fix the problems, Aetna was hired to do a major rehabilitation project that wrapped up in 1998.

But the suit focuses on work done on the bridge in the last decade, work that is not protected by the 10-year statute of limitations. McKee tried to extend the statute of limitations specifically for Washington Bridge suits this year, but lawmakers didn't agree to it.

As expected, international engineering consultancy AECOM, which starting in 2014 was hired to perform a series of inspections and structural evaluations, is a prime target of the state complaint.

AECOM drew up design plans to fix the bridge that "failed to identify, analyze or recommend improvements necessary to completely rehabilitate the existing structure," the suit alleges.

The suit does not mention that AECOM's 2015 structural analysis identified a string of repairs needed to avoid a weight restriction being placed on it, work that was never done.

Regardless, AECOM was not the only firm accused of dropping the ball.

From 2015 until the bridge was closed in December of 2023, five engineering firms − each and every one of the companies the DOT hired to inspect the bridge − failed to identify the problems within its concrete, the suit said.

"Like AECOM and its subconsultants under the 2014 AECOM contract; however, none of the firms that conducted the inspections adequately recognized or addressed critical elements of the bridge's structural safety and integrity," it reads.

Going deeper: State alleges breach of contract

Notably absent from the list of defendants in Friday's lawsuit is Cardi Corp., the Warwick contractor that went out of business last year, a few years after cutting short a 2016 Washington Bridge rehabilitation project designed by AECOM.

At a news conference Friday afternoon, Neronha said it was "not necessarily" the case that Cardi avoided suit because it is no longer in business. He offered opioid cases against Purdue Pharma as example of actions against defunct companies.

The other major target of the lawsuit is the joint venture between Barletta Heavy Division, Aetna and VHB to design and complete work on the bridge that would add new ramps and shore up the structure to extend its life expectancy by 25 years.

In Oct. 19, 2023, the suit alleges, the joint venture issued rehabilitation plans – stamped by VHB,Barletta, and Aetna – which failed to acknowledge problems with the tie-down rods at Piers 6 and 7 and "did not call for repairs to the post-tensioning systems."

The lawsuit alleges Barletta and Aetna breached their 2021 design-build contract by failing to do "a detailed research and review of the bridge structure file" and of failing to provide "the standard of skill, care and diligence exercised by the average professional engineering, consulting, construction, inspection and design firm."

Aetna hit back at the lawsuit, saying that, as a "third generation Rhode Island family business," they were proud of their history of bridge work in the state ... "We will vigorously defend ourselves against any claims made in this lawsuit."

VHB sounded the alarm about structural instability of the bridge last December and Barletta-Aetna have been working to prevent the span from collapsing while building the three-lane emergency bypass taking westbound traffic across the eastbound bridge.

"On behalf of the joint venture, we have been working diligently for the state of RI since the bridge was decommissioned in December, and will continue to do so in accordance with our contractual agreements," Vincent Barletta said in a statement.

'Day of reckoning' for those involved in bridge failure

In April, McKee hired lawyers Max Wistow and Jonathan Savage to pursue financial damages against those responsible for the bridge's condition. At the start of this week, the state's agreement with Wistow and Savage was amended to make the attorney general the lead in the case while maintaining their share of any damages won.

To win money in court, the state is casting blame at the private contractors who could be forced to pay and turning the focus away of the DOT, which has known about problems with the bridge since 1992.

On Friday Neronha equated the DOT to a homeowner who hires contractors to remodel a house and is reliant on the professionals to do it right.

"Whether or not someone should have overseen the experts differently is not a matter for us to discuss here," he said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: State files sweeping lawsuit over Washington Bridge shutdown. Here's who is in the crosshairs.