For the 100 injured in the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minnesota, survival was just the beginning. Consider the couple Brad and Paula Coulter, both of whom were in the car with their daughters when the bridge collapsed beneath them. He suffered a spinal chord injury, well, several broken vertebrae, but escaped paralysis. She, on the other hand, suffered a serious brain injury, and the road to recovery for her goes over several key bridges.
Not the least of which is the question of how to fund her medical treatment, with neither her nor her husband working and their combined medical bills expected to exceed $ 1 million. And the state of Minnesota, who is the only party that can be held legally responsible, has a liability cap of barely $ 1 million dollars, or $10,000 per injured person, not to mention the families of the 13 dead. $10,000 is not very much in medical expenses, and it is not at all able to make up for time off from work, and especially not for those who lost a wage earner. What can be done?
The state is eager to avoid lifting the cap on its liability, even for an event so tragic as this, and one where they are clearly the only ones who could have prevented the accident. This is no 9/11, where unforeseen forces suddenly swept out of the wings to exact terrible vengeance for deeds we never considered wrong; this is a simple engineering problem: so much weight on so much concrete and steel over so much time. The state, by waiting until the last minute to conduct the repairs, and by granting permits to overweight trucks to drive over this and numerous other bridges in the state, set itself up for this disaster, and something must be done to hold the legislators, the inspectors, the transportation secretary individually responsible.
If you know someone who has been hurt in an automobile accident as a result of faulty road design and is willing to try and hold all parties responsible, contact an experienced personal injury attorney at Kennedy Hodges, LLP in the Houston, Texas area.
