Initial investigations by the City of Berkeley officials found that severe rot in the wooden joists holding the balcony deck to the building had caused it to give way on the night of 16 June.
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Several killed in balcony collapse in BerkeleyA video from June showed that the support beams had become brittle and had fallen apart.
The fourth-floor balcony was crowded with birthday revelers when it collapsed near the University of California at Berkeley, hurling five Irish college students and an American friend to their deaths and injuring seven others, authorities said.
Seven people who were injured have also filed lawsuits against the building manager, Greystar, the building owner, BlackRock, and the construction firm that built the balcony, Segue, of negligence. The wood was already saturated with water when it was waterproofed, which had the effect of sealing the water in, according to the complaint.
Walkup, Melodia, Kelly, & Schoenberger, is representing 12 of the families.
It has been reported that the same apartment balcony was showing danger signs of collapsing as far back as 2008, with the two above firms allegedly failing to respond.
The families are suing the owners of the Library Gardens complex – the Blackrock investment companies; Greystar – the property management company which operated and maintained the building; the construction company Segue Construction Inc, and a number of subcontractors and other entities.
Segue used cheaper materials to construct the balcony, making it more susceptible to water damage, and left it exposed to rain during construction in 2005, the lawsuit says. The mushrooms were “the fruiting body of the moisture-induced rot that was rapidly occurring to the wood joists”.
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At least a year before the tragedy, the balcony had rotted to the point “where it demonstrated an increased tilt away from the building when persons stood on it”.
