The parents of the six students killed and the seven injured in the Berkeley tragedy last June have all begun legal action against 35 defendants.
Lawsuits have been filed against various property and construction-related firms associated with the apartment block where the incident happened, including its owner BlackRock, builder Segue Construction and manager Greystar.
Dublin students Eoghan Culligan, Lorcán Miller, Niccolai Schuster, Eimear Walsh, Olivia Burke and Olivia’s Irish-American cousin Ashley Donohoe lost their lives in the tragedy.
The students were killed when the balcony at apartment 405 in the Library Gardens apartment block on Kittredge Street in downtown Berkeley fell during a 21st birthday party.
According to the plaintiff’s legal teams, the defendants ignored signs of wood rot, which led to the balcony’s eventual collapse. Previous tenants had complained about the presence of mushrooms in the balcony to the management company, for instance, an unmistakable sign that moist was seeping through the wood beams supporting the structure.
But according to the legal complaints just lodged, this, and many other signs of impending danger were ignored.