Anyone visiting or working in one of the towering skyscrapers that dominate the heart of Los Angeles and other major cities is likely to be captivated by their size, architectural beauty, and engineering mastery.

It’s understandable that few people think about the complex interplay of work by the dozens of contractors and specialized subcontractors who erect these buildings. Even less thought is likely given to the rules, contracts, and expectations that manage that work – including rules intended to protect the safety of workers and the public during the often-hectic stages of construction.

That can change in an instant when a tragic accident puts safety concerns in the spotlight. That’s what happened on April 4, 2019, when two young girls, Amy and Marlenne Lorenzo, stepped off a Broadway curb and were struck and killed by a dump truck scheduled to haul away dirt from the Grand Ave. construction site of two high-rise towers.

Following the tragic deaths of their daughters, the Lorenzo family filed a lawsuit against Core/Related Grand Avenue Owner, LLC, the owner of the project; Tishman Construction Corporation of California, the general contractor; Calex Engineering, Inc., the excavation contractor; and others.

The construction project, then in its early stages, required the excavation of large amounts of dirt from the three-acre downtown site. Each day as many as 90 dump trucks would be needed to haul away the dirt. When the City of Los Angeles granted a building permit for the project, it required Core/Related to specify where those trucks would be staged while they waited to be filled with dirt, and to submit a map showing the streets the truck would travel to and from the project site.

In evaluating the request for the project’s building permit, the City’s Department of Public Works and Department of Transportation had looked at how the planned hauling operations and related traffic control measures would “protect the public health, safety and welfare.”

The application for the hauling permit stated that the empty dump trucks would be staged on the Grand Ave. construction site until each was filled and dispatched. No more than 20 trucks would be staged at one time, the application said, and no secondary staging site would be needed. The permit was granted, with one of the conditions being that staging of trucks would be “allowed on site only.”

As the excavation trade contractor, Calex agreed to ensure that its subcontractors complied with all applicable laws and requirements of government authorities. Calex said it would have “full responsibility...for all acts and omissions (whether willful, negligent, or otherwise) of every subcontractor and such subcontractor’s employees.”

Calex subcontracted with Commodity Trucking to haul away dirt in Commodity’s own trucks and to hire additional truckers as needed. Commodity contracted with Los Morales to do some hauling. One of Los Morales’ employees, Stanley Randle, drove the truck that struck Amy and Marlenne.

Despite the representation by Core/Related that all dump trucks would be staged on the construction site, its trucking subcontractor set up an off-site staging area near the intersection of  Broadway and 23rd Street, several miles from the project. This second staging site was not known to City regulators and was not included in traffic and safety plans.

On the morning of April 4, Randle drove a double-bottom dump truck from his home toward the unofficial second staging area. With its two trailers the vehicle was about 60 feet long, requiring wide turns. Near 37th Street, about 14 blocks from the staging site, he turned onto Broadway and struck and killed the Lorenzo children. Details of the accident are not in the court record, but according to court filings Randle was convicted of two counts of vehicular manslaughter.

At trial, Core/Related, Tishman and Calex asked the court to dismiss the claims against them, arguing that they did not owe a duty of care to the girls. The trial court agreed. The Lorenzo family then appealed.

Two of the three appellate justices said a key issue in assigning liability is not whether a particular plaintiff’s injury was the foreseeable result of the conduct of a particular defendant, but whether the “category of negligent conduct at issue is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm experienced.”

Although the developer, construction company and excavation contractor did not establish the ad hoc staging area, they were aware that there was not enough room for the trucks to stage on-site, the justices said, and at least one had learned about the off-site staging before hauling began.

The justices also noted that the companies had assured city officials that they would not be staging trucks off-site. By failing to inform the officials of the change the companies deprived regulators of an opportunity to implement safety and traffic control measures at the new site that might have prevented the fatal accident.

Randle, the driver, was directly responsible for the accident, the justices acknowledged, but the defendants’ violation of the excavation permit impaired the ability of the truck driver and pedestrians to move safely through the area around the unauthorized staging area.

The defendants deserved “moral blame” for the accident, the justices said, because they failed to take a number of available safety measures, such as complying with City rules about the on-site staging area or seeking a permit and safety review for the additional off-site location. Their actions may not have been the proximate or direct cause of the accident, but their conduct “reasonably increased the risk” of the accident that took the girls’ lives.

A third appellate justice dissented, arguing that the majority’s finding that an application for off-site staging might have resulted in improved safety measures was speculative. The accident occurred 14 blocks from the unapproved staging area, this justice noted, and “defendants did nothing to impair Randle’s ability to drive responsibly or to impair the child victims’ abilities to avoid being harmed.”

By Laurie Murphy