Confidential Settlement Reached for 70+ Victims of Deadly Flower Branch Apartments Gas Explosion
Regan Zambri Long PLLC, co-counsel with two other Washington firms, secured a confidential settlement in November 2019 for more than 70 victims of the August 2016 natural gas explosion that destroyed two Silver Spring apartment buildings, killed seven residents, and sent dozens more to the hospital.
What happened
On the morning of August 10, 2016, a natural gas explosion ripped through the Flower Branch Apartments in Silver Spring, Maryland, collapsing two residential buildings. Seven people died. Dozens more were hospitalized with serious injuries. In total, more than 70 residents were left to sort through the wreckage of their homes and, in many families, the loss of people they loved.
The cause was not an accident in any ordinary sense. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the blast originated from a failed indoor mercury service regulator whose vent line was not properly connected, allowing gas to accumulate in the meter room until it ignited. Investigators also found that Washington Gas had pledged back in 2003 to replace more than 66,000 of these mercury regulators within ten years. By August 2016, that work remained unfinished.
Regan Zambri Long PLLC, together with Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata and Siegel PC and Bailey and Glasser LLP, filed suit on behalf of the victims in November 2016 in Montgomery County Circuit Court. The case was captioned Selvin Rosales et al. v. Washington Gas Light Company et al., case no. 426972V, and named Washington Gas and property manager Kay Management as defendants. Patrick Regan of Regan Zambri Long served as lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
With a 15-day jury trial scheduled for December 2019 before Judge Ronald B. Rubin, the parties reached a verbal settlement in principle on November 15, 2019, just weeks before the trial date. The financial terms were kept confidential under the agreement. Washington Gas confirmed through a spokesman that 'the matter has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties involved.' A formal written settlement followed shortly after, and a joint public statement was issued in December 2019.
The settlement closed three years of litigation on behalf of residents who had lost family members, suffered burns and other injuries, or been displaced when their homes were destroyed. Washington Gas had also been fined $750,000 by regulators following the explosion.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Maryland Daily Record: Attorneys say fatal apartment explosion suit settled confidentially (Nov. 15, 2019)·Archived copy
- 2.WTOP News: Settlement reached in 2016 Silver Spring apartment explosion (Dec. 2019)·Archived copy
- 3.Washington Post: Settlement reached in lawsuits over Silver Spring explosion and fire that killed 7 (Dec. 17, 2019)·Archived copy
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