Channel 11 speaks with attorneys filing lawsuits after Fern Hollow Bridge collapse

PITTSBURGH — It’s been more than two years since the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed. Thursday was the deadline for lawsuits to be filed.

Channel 11′s Alyssa Raymond talked with attorneys filing the suits and what they claim engineers neglected to tell the city.

“He had to call his wife and tell her I love her thinking he was going to die,” said Attorney Peter Giglione.

Daryl Luciani, while behind the wheel of a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus, plunged 100 feet into a ravine on Jan. 28, 2022. The complaint filed as part of his lawsuit says after the free-fall, he smelled natural gas.

“The next thing in his mind is I just survived a bridge collapse now I’m going to explode,” said Giglione.

“There’s no jackpot justice,” said Attorney Steve Barth. “This is pain, suffering and mental anguish.”

Luciani’s attorneys, Peter Giglione and Steve Barth, spent months compiling this complaint which documents the emotional trauma and cites examples to try to prove negligence by the City of Pittsburgh over the span of four administrations as well as three engineering firms it hired to maintain and inspect the bridge. The engineering firms named in the lawsuit are CDM Smith Inc., Gannett Fleming Inc. and Larson Design Group.

“The City was indeed being told that the bridge was in bad shape,” said Giglione. “The bridge was in worse shape than the city was being told that it was.”

“If it was the correct load analysis, the City would have known that,” said Barth. “The City would have closed that bridge down. That is not what happened because they didn’t have the correct load analysis.”

“This bridge has been deteriorating for years,” said Giglione. “It was known to be deteriorating for years. It was known that there were issues with the support system. It was known that the drains were clogged allowing water and debris to go over the bridge deck down the legs that accelerated the deterioration of the bridge and didn’t allow the legs to form the protective coating  that that type of steel required to remain safe and to not deteriorate.”

Both attorneys call it a systemic failure.

“This was a variety of failures by a variety of entities,” said Giglione.  “And our main thing what our client wants out of this more than anything else is he doesn’t want this to happen ever again anywhere.”

The Fern Hollow Bridge was a K-frame structure. As of January 2022, it was one of only six bridges with this design in the state.

“It was a non-redundant bridge, and so the significance of that is if any one system of that bridge fails, the whole bridge will likely come down,” said Giglione. “They don’t build bridges like that anymore for that reason. Most current bridges are redundant design bridges meaning that if one part fails the entire thing is not going to fail. The City knew that this was that sort of design, and therefore should have been on heightened awareness with this rapid deterioration if one of those tie plates failed, which is exactly what happened here and caused this thing to come down the whole bridge was going to come down. There was no other safety features there.”

Channel 11 reached out to all three engineering firms as well as the City of Pittsburgh.

A spokesperson for the City said, “Due to this being a pending litigation. The city will have no comment at this time.”

A jury trial is expected to start in September 2025.

Attorneys for Matthew Evans, Thomas and Sara Bench and Velva and Tyrone Perry also filed similar complaints before the deadline.

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