Jury orders Seattle Tunnel Partners to pay WSDOT for Bertha delays
Seattle Tunnel Partners is on the hook to pay the state transportation department $57.2 million for tunnel-boring machine Bertha’s 2013 breakdown, according to court documents obtained by the Business Journal. The Seattle Times first reported the story Friday.
A Thurston County jury issued its verdict Friday, putting the blame for Bertha’s stall and the resulting three-year delay to deliver the State Route 99 tunnel on mistakes by the contractor and awarding the Washington State Department of Transportation the full amount it requested in damages. An appeal is still possible on the lawsuit, which WSDOT filed in March 2016.
Seattle Tunnel Partners wanted WSDOT to pay more than $300 million and blamed the stall on a steel pipe Bertha struck, the Seattle Times earlier reported. The jury found that the pipe was not a substantial unexpected underground condition for the boring machine and was not to blame for the machine's breakdown.
Secretary of Transportation Roger Millar said WSDOT placed tunneling risks on Seattle Tunnel Partners in its contract. In the contract, executed in 2010, it states the builder is responsible for continually evaluating site conditions as they are encountered to identify unexpected subsurface physical conditions.
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