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Victims of the 2021 building collapse in Surfside, Florida, which killed nearly a hundred people, reached a $997 million settlement to close the case.
The judge in charge of the case, Miami-Dade County Magistrate Michael Hanzman, determined that the distribution of the money agreed with insurers and defendants will be determined based on the share each had in the building that partially collapsed in the early morning hours of June 24, 2021, killing 98 people.
Judge Hanzman had previously said that there is not a sufficient amount of money that can adequately compensate for the human losses, although Tropin indicated that now, at least, the victims and relatives of the deceased will have some degree of relief.
The building, built in 1981, was in the midst of a process known as “recertification,” which consists of a review of the structures and electrical installations required by law as a 40-year-old building.
Three years earlier, a report by an engineering firm warned of serious structural problems in the building that deserved urgent attention.
Ninety-eight people died as a result of the collapse, which despite being partial, left the building uninhabitable and was completely demolished on July 4, 2021.
Last February, lawyers for the owners of apartments in the collapsed building reached a “tentative” agreement whereby they will distribute 83 million dollars among those who lost their homes.
The settlement has no effect on the wrongful death claims filed by the families of the 98 people who died in the collapse.
