MinnLawyer Blog

The Fund for Legal Aid Society presented its second annual “Masters of the Courtroom CLE” yesterday, as part of its celebration of Law Day. I wasn’t able to make the entire program, but I was fortunate enough to be there while Steve Kirsch, of Murnane Brandt, discussed his work with the special master panel that recently gave away more than $36 million to victims of the 35W bridge collapse.

Kirsch, along with attorneys Susan Holden and Mike Tewksbury, were appointed to hear the stories of the people injured that day and determine the monetary awards that would compensate them.

Of the 179 people who made claims, all but 10 of them requested a hearing before at least one of the panel members. Kirsch stressed that there was “not one phony claim” among them, and that in addition to the physical injuries that most of them suffered, “all of these people had legitimate psychological injuries.”

The trio spent months hearing stories of tragedy as well as heroism. All three panel members were present for between 70 and 80 of the hearings, which included all of the death cases. In the hearings held by only one panel member, that person gave a full report to the others.

Because they had a limited pot to work with, $36.64 million, they were forced to lower most of the numbers they thought people were actually entitled to.

“The most difficult thing, besides listening at the hearings, was cutting the amount we thought people should get, sometimes by as much as two-thirds,” said Kirsh.

Nonetheless, all 179 of the offers were accepted.

Kirsch said that when he looks back on this experience, he won’t remember the language of the bridge fund statute or the expert reports submitted by the victims. What he will remember are the people and their stories. Those people included:

• a popular employee of PCI who was killed while working on the construction crew that was resurfacing the bridge when it fell;
• a father who drowned while trying to rescue two people he didn’t know from the river;
• a woman who went through 10 surgeries and spent 1 ½ years in a wheel chair or on crutches, but refused to let it get her down;
• a man who broke every bone in his face and nearly every bone in his body when his car slid backwards from the top of the bridge to the bottom;
• the bus driver who refused to take her foot off the brake until every single child was out;
• the assistant who had to pry the driver out of the bus once the kids were safe; and
• a pregnant teacher from North St. Paul who was unconscious for 30 days after being injured in the collapse. (She managed to give birth to a healthy son while unconscious.)

“I’ve hit the zenith of my career,” Kirsch said after discussing his experience on the special master panel. “I might as quit while I’m ahead.”