DAVENPORT, Iowa (NewsNation) — A new lawsuit was filed by the business owners of 4th Street Nutrition and four other tenants of the Davenport apartment building that partially collapsed. It’s the fourth lawsuit in the matter.
The lawsuit filed was filed against building owner Andrew Wold and two of his business interests, Davenport Hotel LLC and Andrew Wold Investments LLC. Also, the City of Davenport and the city’s former chief building official, Trishna Pradhan, are named.
“We’re suing Mr. Wold under several theories, one is negligence per se, which means he’s negligent as a matter of law,” said John Flynn, who represents the tenants and business owners. “Another is maintaining a hazardous nuisance, which, under the Restatement of Torts results in strict liability, which means he’s liable as a matter of law.”
Flynn said the other issue is the city of Davenport has the responsibility to inspect the building. He said in the petition, they’ve outlined several times over the last two years where the city had inspected and told Wold to fix things, but he never did.
“The city’s responsible because ultimately, they should have made him vacate the building,” he said. “There was no reason to keep those tenants in that building that everybody knew, according to the evidence, the wall was going to fall down.”
Flynn said they feel the city “should be held accountable because they failed to protect the public and particularly the tenants in that building.”
“Also the fire department and emergency workers had to go into the building to get people out. I think that they’re culpable for that action,” he continued. “We’re not criticizing the mayor or the city council; I want to be clear about that. We’re focusing on the administration who did not do their job for whatever reason.”
According to the lawsuit, each of the tenants is claiming damages in the excess of $10,000, and asking for compensation for loss of personal property, emotional stress and court costs.
A section of the building fell away on May 28, burying three residents in the rubble at the base of the structure and forcing others to scramble out of the building. One woman was pinned under the debris and had to have a leg amputated to be pulled to safety.
Since the collapse, no tenants have been allowed back into the building to retrieve any personal items.
On Monday, Wold pleaded guilty to a civil infraction filed by the city, through his attorney, according to online court records. The infraction, which stated that Wold didn’t maintain safe conditions at the building, carries a $300 fine plus $95 in court costs.
The day before the collapse, firefighters were called to the building because of concerns about an unstable wall. On Sunday, the city said in a news release that fire crews went to the building and saw work was being done and that there appeared to be shoring of the structure in place.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.