Judge rules on motion to dismiss Davenport building-collapse suit

Linda Cook
·2 min read
Judge rules on motion to dismiss Davenport building-collapse suit

Our Quad Cities News learned of new developments Thursday night in the civil cases connected to last year’s deadly apartment building collapse in downtown Davenport.

One of the four defendants won a legal victory and won’t be subject to the lawsuit, according to court records filed Tuesday in Scott County Court.

The City of Davenport and three employees who worked for Davenport asked the court to dismiss the case against them.

District Court Judge Mark Lawson found former City Administrator Corri Spiegel can’t be held liable, but others still can be sued.

The allegations against Spiegel are not sufficient to generate more than a possibility of misconduct, Lawson said in the ruling. Spiegel did not inspect the apartment building. But Lawson found that Davenport former chief building official Trishna Pradhan and the city’s current Director of Development and Neighborhood Services Richard Oswald both “failed to use reasonable care in conducting inspections, and failed to undertake a mandatory duty to serve notice and post notices to vacate” the building.

The judge denied the city’s, Pradhan’s and Oswald’s motions to dismiss the cases against them. In the ruling, he explained that, if the plaintiff’s allegations are true, Pradham, Oswald and the city failed to exercise “reasonable care” to the plaintiffs in the weeks before the collapse.

Lawson says “municipal employees owe a duty of care to tenants of an apartment building under certain circumstances. Tenants are not members of the general public to which no duty of care attaches,” Lawson says in the order.

One count of the master consolidated petition was dismissed. “It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed by the Court that the remainder of the motion to dismiss filed by the City of Davenport, Trishna Pradhan and Richard Oswald is DENIED,” the ruling says.

To read the ruling, click below:

Order-filed-April-2-2024Download

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