Champlain Towers Collapse: $1.021 Billion for 98 Victims in Under a Year
After trial: Court-approved settlement fund for the 98 wrongful death claims from the collapse; with property claims the full program totaled about $1.2 billion.
Won by Grossman Yaffa Cohen (co-lead counsel), Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton LLP (co-lead counsel), Podhurst Orseck PA (co-lead counsel), The Moskowitz Law Firm, PLLC (co-lead counsel), Colson Hicks Eidson (liaison counsel), Gary, Williams, Parenti, Watson & Gary, P.L.L.C. (steering committee), Goldberg & Rosen (steering committee), Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky (steering committee) and 9 other firms.
The families of 98 people killed in the June 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida, recovered over $1 billion through a class settlement run by a court-appointed Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, with final approval reached in under a year.
What happened
At 1:22 a.m. on June 24, 2021, the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium at 8777 Collins Avenue in Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed without warning. Ninety-eight residents died. Eleven others were injured. Search-and-rescue crews worked for weeks in the rubble before the remaining structure was demolished ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa.
The collapse triggered immediate questions about years of deferred maintenance, structural warning signs documented in engineering reports dating to 2018, and the responsibility of contractors, engineers, and the condominium association. Families of the dead and injured filed suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, and Judge Michael Hanzman consolidated the cases into a single class action.
Judge Hanzman consolidated the cases and, on July 16, 2021, appointed a Plaintiffs' Steering Committee to run the litigation. The Florida Bar News named five of them co-chair lead counsel: Harley Tropin and Javier Lopez of Kozyak Tropin and Throckmorton, Rachel Furst of Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen, Ricardo Martinez-Cid of Podhurst Orseck, and Adam Moskowitz of the Moskowitz Law Firm. Curtis Miner of Colson Hicks Eidson served as Wrongful Death Charitable Liaison Counsel. The settlement agreement lists the full committee as class counsel: those six, plus Stuart Grossman, John Scarola, Robert Mongeluzzi, Shannon del Prado, Jorge Silva, Willie Gary, Gonzalo Dorta, Judd Rosen, MaryBeth LippSmith, Luis Suarez, John Ruiz, Chip Merlin and Bradford Sohn. Judge Hanzman said everyone serving in those leadership roles agreed to do so pro bono, with no right to a fee from the court.
The litigation named more than two dozen defendants: the condominium association, engineers who had flagged structural concerns, the general contractor for a neighboring construction project suspected of contributing to soil disturbance, a security firm, and multiple insurers. Rather than pursue a years-long trial, lead counsel pursued an aggressive parallel-track settlement strategy across all defendant groups simultaneously.
On May 30, 2022, Judge Hanzman granted preliminary approval of a settlement totaling approximately $1 billion for wrongful-death and personal-injury claimants, drawn from more than 25 contributing defendants and insurers. The largest single contributions came from a security company ($517 million), the general contractor ($157 million), and proceeds from the sale of the collapse site ($120 million). Final approval followed on June 23, 2022, one day before the first anniversary of the collapse. The total recovery across all claim classes, including a separate $96 million property-damage settlement, reached approximately $1.021 billion. Judge Hanzman called the pace of the result 'beyond extraordinary.' Victim compensation checks were expected to begin in September 2022.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.In re Champlain Towers South Collapse Litigation, Class Action Settlement Agreement, sec. 2.1.36 (Miami-Dade Cir. Ct. No. 2021-015089-CA-01, 2022)
- 2.Florida Bar News: Goldberg leads effort to make condo collapse victims whole·Archived copy
- 3.Law360: Fla. Judge Gives Initial OK To $1B Surfside Collapse Deal
- 4.Commercial Observer: Victims of Deadly Champlain Condo Collapse Reach $1 Billion Settlement·Archived copy
- 5.ABC News: $1 billion settlement announced in deadly Surfside condo collapse·Archived copy
- 6.The Real Deal: Settlement in Surfside condo collapse now $1.04B (May 24, 2022; headline taken from URL, page not retrievable)·Archived copy
- 7.Local 10 (WPLG): Tentative settlement agreement reached for surviving victims, victims' families of Surfside building collapse (Mar. 8, 2022)·Archived copy
- 8.WUOT (NPR): A tentative settlement is reached in a Surfside condo collapse lawsuit (May 12, 2022)·Archived copy
- 9.Rolling Stone: Surfside Condo Collapse: 'Miracle Boy' Shares His Story for First Time (June 23, 2022)·Archived copy
- 10.Court order (Miami-Dade Circuit Court, Case No. 2021-015089-CA-01, Judge Michael Hanzman)·Archived copy
- 11.WPLG Local 10 (ABC Miami): Surfside building collapse: Security company to pay most of $1B settlement, attorneys say (June 2022)·Archived copy
- 12.Times of Israel: Judge okays $1.2 billion settlement for Surfside collapse victims (June 2022)·Archived copy
- 13.CBS News Miami: judge approves $1.02 billion Surfside settlement·Archived copy
- 14.PBS NewsHour: judge approves $1 billion settlement for Surfside victims·Archived copy
- 15.Top Class Actions: Champlain Towers South collapse $1B class action settlement (June 2, 2022)·Archived copy
- 16.The Florida Bar News: The Surfside story·Archived copy
- 17.Law360: Surfside Victims Reach $997M In Settlements (May 11, 2022)
- 18.Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi on scene at Surfside collapse (Jul 1, 2021)·Archived copy
- 19.NPR: One year after Surfside collapse, settlement approved (Jun 23, 2022)·Archived copy
- 20.CNN: Judge approves billion-dollar Surfside settlement (Jun 24, 2022)·Archived copy
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