Collapse of Garage on Miami-Dade College Campus in 2012
Whether a developer is trying to make a delivery deadline on a construction project, or cut costs because the project was under-budgeted at inception, or hire fewer workers in the face of safety, typically construction incidents stem from developers, contractors, and subcontractors cutting corners. In recent memory, a garage collapse on Miami-Dade College campus in 2012, which caused injuries to eleven people, including four fatalities, ended in multi-million dollar settlements with the victims and Miami-Dade College. Four years later, the rebuild of the same garage collapsed again, injuring two workers.
In an article titled “Identifying Root Causes of Construction Accidents”, published in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, several causes were discussed and ultimately identified after studying thousands of different cases. The authors concluded that one of the top three causes stems from management procedures which create and fail to identify, rectify and remove unsafe conditions that exist on and around a construction site. The other two causes were linked to workers lacking sufficient training or knowledge.
Often times, members of the public are affected by human errors which manifest themselves in defective construction design. That is why, over the last 41 years, Leesfield & Partners has represented many construction workers and members of the public against construction companies for their failure to follow construction standards, regulations, and guidelines, including rudimentary safety standards in the industry.