Settlement reached in Big Dig death

December 24, 2007 10:30 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Megan Woolhouse, GLOBE STAFF

After three weeks of confidential negotiations, Powers Fasteners has reached a $6 million settlement with the family of a Jamaica Plain woman who was killed in last year’s ceiling collapse in a Big Dig tunnel, family representatives and company officials announced Monday night.

"We are grateful that the Powers family company has done the right thing,’’ said Raquel Ibarra Morra, whose mother, Milena Del Valle, 38, died on July 10, 2006, when concrete tiles from the Interstate 90 Connector Tunnel ceiling crushed the car she and her husband were in on the way to Logan International Airport. Morra issued a joint statement Monday with her mother's widower, Angel Del Valle.

"We hope that [Big Dig project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff] and the other companies now show the same strength of character."

The settlement was first reported Monday night on WBZ-TV.

Powers is the first of 15 defendants in the multimillion dollar lawsuit brought by the woman’s family to settle claims.

The company’s president, Jeffrey Powers, in a statement denied responsibility for the death but said he hoped the settlement would "allow the healing process to begin ... We also hope that this will lead others who, unlike Powers, truly were responsible for the accident, to do the same."

Other defendants include Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

Lawyers involved in the case have speculated that the company’s willingness to compensate Del Valle’s husband and three children could help the company fight a manslaughter charge brought by Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The charge, which Powers has been fighting, is pending in Suffolk Superior Court.

On Dec. 18, Patrick F. Brady, a Suffolk Superior Court judge, refused to dismiss the manslaughter charge against the company, which is based in Brewster, N.Y. Brady rejected the company’s contentions that the attorney general’s office should not be able to prosecute the case because it has filed a civil lawsuit against Powers and other companies seeking millions of dollars in damages.

Coakley said then that the decision accurately reflected state law, but Max Stern, a lawyer representing Powers, said he thought it was ‘‘wrongly decided’’ and suggested that Powers would be vindicated at trial.

Federal investigators found that workers had used the wrong epoxy in constructing the ceiling.
Powers, which was indicted in August, is accused of failing to adequately warn construction contractors of the dangers of using a fast-drying glue to secure ceiling bolts.