Family of Student Killed in Seattle Crane Collapse Recovers $54.15 Million

A 300-foot tower crane was being taken down atop a building under construction in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood on the morning of April 27, 2019. The disassembly plan called for a mobile crane to lower the tower crane's pieces to the ground in sixteen separate lifts, and it required shortening the mobile crane's main boom from 179 feet to 147 feet before the ninth lift, the single biggest lift of the job. Omega Morgan Sarens, the company operating the mobile crane, attempted that lift without shortening the boom. The mobile crane could not hoist the load, and while its operator unhooked and worked to reconfigure it, ironworkers from Northwest Tower Crane Service kept removing the pins that held the tower crane's sections together. By the time the mobile crane was ready again, roughly half an hour later, the wind had climbed past the limit for the work. Destabilized and unsupported, the tower crane toppled onto the street below.

The falling crane crushed cars on Mercer Street. Sarah Pantip Wong, a 19-year-old freshman at Seattle Pacific University, was riding in an Uber when a piece of the crane struck it, killing her at the scene. Alan Justad, a 71-year-old retired Seattle city planner, died in his own vehicle when the same part fell on it. Two ironworkers riding the crane, Travis Corbet and Andrew Yoder, fell to their deaths. Wong's friend and fellow passenger Brittany Cadelina and the Uber driver, Ali Edriss, were injured, as was another driver, Sally Beaven, whose car was struck by a separate piece of the crane.

Wong's parents, as co-personal representatives of her estate, joined Justad's family and the injured survivors in suing the companies involved in the disassembly, and the cases were consolidated. General contractor GLY Construction, crane owner Morrow Equipment, and crane-operator supplier Seaburg Construction settled before trial and were not defendants at trial. Northwest Tower Crane and Omega Morgan went to trial in King County Superior Court. After a trial that ran several weeks, the jury returned its verdict on March 14, 2022. It found GLY Construction, Morrow Equipment, Northwest Tower Crane and Omega Morgan negligent, found that the negligence of the last three caused the deaths and injuries, and set total damages at just over $150 million. The jury apportioned 45 percent of the fault to Northwest Tower Crane, 30 percent to Omega Morgan, and 25 percent to Morrow Equipment, which was not a defendant at trial.

The jury put the damages for Wong's death at more than $72 million. Washington law makes defendants who caused a blameless plaintiff's injuries jointly and severally liable, but only for the share of the fault the jury assigns to them. Because Northwest Tower Crane and Omega Morgan together carried 75 percent of the fault, they were on the hook for 75 percent of the damages, which left Wong's estate, her parents and her sibling with $54.15 million under the judgment. Todd Gardner, who represented the Wong family at trial, told reporters afterward that Northwest Tower Crane pulled too many pins too fast and that Omega Morgan kept working despite the winds, and that had either company done its job the collapse would not have happened. Lead trial counsel for the consolidated plaintiffs said the families intended to pursue Morrow Equipment separately for its share, since Morrow had settled and was not a judgment defendant.

Omega Morgan appealed, raising four arguments: that the trial court wrongly excluded evidence it said showed a collusive settlement arrangement between the plaintiffs and Northwest Tower Crane, that the court gave an erroneous jury instruction on which entities owed a duty of care, that the court let an expert witness testify to a legal conclusion, and that the court should have granted a new trial over misconduct in closing argument. The Washington Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed in an unpublished 2023 opinion. On the last point the court agreed that one remark by Wong's counsel in closing was improper, but it held the remark was neither prejudicial nor uncured by the jury instructions, noting that the jury had in fact apportioned 25 percent of the negligence to a nonparty. No further appeal to the Washington Supreme Court has surfaced in public records.