MIAMI – On July 6th 2019, a gas explosion at a former restaurant in a Plantation shopping center on South University drive destroyed several businesses and 22 people wounded.
“It was really a ticking time bomb,” said Trial Attorney Sam Coffey, who represents 30 people and commercial businesses impacted by the blast.
His law firm worked with a company to recreate computer-generated animations to depict, what they say, the evidence shows happened that day.
The animations are dramatic renderings of what took place at the nearby LA Fitness, showing the windows being blown out and animated people falling to the ground. There is also an aerial view of the explosion, depicting how suddenly and violently the blast happened.
Coffey says there were a series of failures, such as the gas company not shutting off the gas to the empty property, the property owner leaving an exposed gas pipe after the removal of a pizza oven, and not having a lock on the gas line.
He says that all led to the space being filled with 7,000 cubic feet of gas, which ignited when the air conditioning turned on.
“A two-dollar gas cap that, put in place, would’ve made it so the gas couldn’t flow,” said Coffey.”
He has filed motions for punitive damages against the gas company, and the property owners and managers.
“They had opportunities on each and every one of those 197 days to do the simple things and follow safety rules that would’ve prevented this catastrophe,” Coffey said.
The motions allege the companies that owned the properties “enacted policies that consciously disregarded the safety of others by prioritizing efficiency cost savings and profits over safety.”
Another motion claims: “TECO [gas company] left the supply of gas running for six months, creating grave risk of explosion.”
According to the information in the suit, the former tenant called to have the gas shut off on December 13th. However, TECO blamed a computer software glitch for canceling that turn-off order.
We contacted the company who said they could not comment on a pending lawsuit.
A trial date has been set for September.
