Legal Proceedings
An Inevitable Result of a Failure
ArticleFebruary 1990
PM Network
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Within minutes of the collapse of the roof on April 23, a number of lawyers were busily reviewing both insurance and lease documents in order to determine the potential rights and liabilities of any of the parties involved.
perception, building inspectors do only a cursory inspection of large buildings. However, municipal departments are the last check points before a building is built and any necessary additional checks must be introduced into the process at either the design stage, by architects and engineers, or at the stage of the permit application to the municipality.
The response of emergency teams, fire, police, ambulance, was prompt and efficient.
Clearly, the matter of public safety is a paramount consideration by all those involved in building projects, especially those intended for public use. With this in mind, the Inquiry Commissioner made a number of important recommendations as follows:
- Provision must be made for the audit of structural engineering drawings and calculations for major buildings selectively chosen by municipalities for review by independent engineers, with the cost borne by a special levy on municipal permits.
- Structural engineers should be required to pass a special examination before becoming professionally qualified and should be required to carry specified limits of professional liability insurance.
- A provincial manual of recommended construction practices and procedures should be developed to clarify responsibilities of owners, architects, engineers, contractors and suppliers in construction projects.
- Standard documents (Letters of Assurance) under the building code should be used throughout the province for major buildings, to assign responsibilities among owners, architects and engineers.
- Architects and engineers should be primarily responsible for ensuring compliance with the building code for major buildings, with building inspectors playing a secondary, administrative role.
- In addition to the registration of individual engineers, engineering firms should also be registered with the professional association, to strengthen standards within the engineering profession.
- Provincial standards of practice should be established for major building design, drawings and calculations.
- Steel industry construction manuals should be revised to provide more accurate assistance to engineers.
- The Minister responsible for municipal construction should appoint a three-member task force to oversee implementation of these recommendations.
Within minutes of the collapse of the roof on April 23, a number of lawyers were busily reviewing both insurance and lease documents in order to determine the potential rights and liabilities of any of the parties involved. While this process continued, there was convened by Order in Council made May 6, 1988, a Commission under the Inquiry Act to report to the provincial government on the circumstances of the collapse. Considering the complexity of the legal issues raised, the Closkey Commission held 10 days of hearings between May 30 and July 6, 1988. The report of that commission appeared in printed form in August of 1988 after hearing a total of 47 witnesses.
By October of 1988, Statements of Claim were issued by Station Square Developments Inc. (the developers of the Station Square development at Metro Town) and Jim Pattison Industries (the owners of Save-on-Foods) filed Writs in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against the Municipality of Burnaby, the general contractor and the subcontractors involved in the steelwork as well as the architects and all of its sub consultants.
Beginning in December 1988, a Discipline Committee, a panel of the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of British Columbia, held inquiries charging engineers with incompetence, negligence or misconduct in relation to the design, inspection and supervision and review of the Station Square Development. On June 12, 1989, the Discipline Committee found a number of the engineers had been responsible of misconduct or breaches of the Code of Ethics of their association.
At present, a trial involving all the parties to settle the legal liabilities arising out of the collapse will begin in Vancouver on January 22, 1990. This trial is presently scheduled to take 10 weeks of trial time. Before a Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia more detailed evidence will be heard. Monetary judgments against various plaintiffs could be assessed aggregating to several millions of dollars.
Will ultimate responsibility rest solely with the engineers? Will there be some liability assessed against the general contractor or its sub contractors? Indeed will some fault lie with the developers and in the manner in which they conducted themselves? The answer to these questions will soon be known. The consequences of these answers for the construction industry will be more long lasting.
The chart on the following pages illustrates the complexity of and the number of parties involved in bringing this case to resolution.
Flowchart of Parties involved in resolving the Station Square Incident
February 1990
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