BALTIMORE (AP) 鈥 Crew members on the cargo ship Dali can head home as soon as Thursday under an agreement that allows lawyers to question them as part of investigations into the cause of the deadly collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge.
None of the crew members has been able to leave the U.S. since their ship lost power and crashed into one of the bridge鈥檚 supporting columns on March 26.
Under the agreement, which was confirmed by U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar during a hearing Thursday, the crew can return home but must be available for depositions.
Attorneys had to prevent the roughly two dozen total crew members 鈥 all hailing from India or Sri Lanka 鈥 from leaving. Eight of the Dali鈥檚 were scheduled to return home, according to emails included in court filings.
In the court filings, attorneys said the men should remain in the U.S. so they can be deposed in ongoing civil litigation to decide who is responsible for costs and damages resulting from the bridge collapse. were killed and most maritime traffic through was temporarily halted.
鈥淭he crew consists entirely of foreign nationals who, of course, have critical knowledge and information about the events giving rise to this litigation,鈥 attorneys wrote. 鈥淚f they are permitted to leave the United States, Claimants may never have the opportunity to question or depose them.鈥
Attorney William H. 鈥淏illy鈥 Murphy Jr., representing a claimant named Damon Davis, said the litigation over the bridge collapse 鈥渕ay be the most expensive maritime case in the history of the world.鈥
鈥淓verybody is paying close attention to the details so that we can unravel all aspects of this and come up with a just result,鈥 Murphy said.
Seven attorneys represented the federal government at the hearing. Two lawyers who represented the Dali's owner ignored questions as they left the courthouse.
Lawrence B. Brennan, a longtime admiralty lawyer based in New Jersey, said these kinds of legal battles are not uncommon or even unprecedented.
鈥淚t鈥檚 going to get complicated for a while,鈥 said Brennan, who previously worked for the Justice Department and is an adjunct law professor at Fordham University. 鈥淎nd I don鈥檛 think anything is going to get resolved in the next few weeks or months, unless somebody decides it鈥檚 in their best interest to pay off the case.鈥
Brennan said it鈥檚 important to complete the depositions soon to avoid stalling the case.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to be talking these same issues two to three to four years from now," he said.
But he warned it can be hard to make witnesses comply with such an agreement once they have left the U.S.
鈥淭he promise to come back is hard to enforce,鈥 Brennan said. 鈥淪o, if it isn鈥檛 enforced, then the court has to decide what the consequences are. And usually that is punishment for the party who broke the agreement.鈥
Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for the ship鈥檚 owner, said Tuesday evening that some crew members were scheduled to leave but he couldn鈥檛 say when, and that others would remain to assist with the investigation. He also said he wasn鈥檛 sure when the ship would leave Baltimore for Norfolk, Virginia, where it will receive extensive repairs.
The hulking container ship remained pinned amid the wreckage of the fallen bridge for almost two months while workers removed thousands and thousands of tons of mangled steel and concrete from the bottom of the Patapsco River at the entrance to Baltimore鈥檚 harbor.
The ship鈥檚 crew remained on board even when to break apart fallen bridge trusses and free the vessel from a massive steel span that landed across its bow.
The ongoing civil litigation began with a , two Singapore-based companies, seeking to limit their legal liability for the deadly disaster.
A found the ship experienced two power outages in the hours before it left the Port of Baltimore. In the moments before the bridge collapsed, it lost power again and veered off course. The agency is still investigating what caused the electrical failures.
The FBI also launched a .
According to the emails included in Tuesday鈥檚 court filings, the eight crew members scheduled to return home have already been interviewed by Department of Justice investigators, and the department doesn鈥檛 object to their departure. The crew members were flying out of Baltimore 鈥渓ikely on or about" Thursday, an attorney for the ship鈥檚 owner and manager wrote.
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Brumfield reported from Silver Spring, Maryland. Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
