Traffic on I-195 East flows on the Washington Bridge in East Providence on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, at 2:49 p.m. Crews were in the process of removing the bridge deck from the adjacent westbound bridge when the work was paused Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, so the state can preserve evidence in its lawsuit against firms it believes are responsible for the bridge’s condition. (Rhode Island Department of Transportation Traffic Camera)
Demolition work on the westbound Washington Bridge is halted until further notice because state litigators say they need to preserve evidence in the ongoing case against the 13 firms who previously worked on the shuttered highway.
The decision was announced late Tuesday in a joint statement from the offices of Gov. Dan McKee and Attorney General Peter Neronha — nearly a month after Warwick-based Aetna Bridge Co. began to tear down the westbound section of I-195.
“The engineers for RIDOT, in cooperation with the state’s legal team, have reached the point in the demolition of the Washington Bridge where work must be paused to preserve evidence for the legal case,” their statement said. “The goal is to be able to continue demolition as swiftly as possible while ensuring important evidence is preserved.”
The stoppage comes a little more than a month after the state’s legal team filed suit against 13 firms who previously worked on the bridge, accusing them of failing to timely and adequately identify worsening structural issues that led to the abrupt closure of the bridge during afternoon rush hour on Dec. 11, 2023.
State officials closed the western span over the Seekonk River after the discovery of broken anchor rods that put it at risk of collapse. At the time, the state said the highway carried approximately 96,000 vehicles a day.
The statement by McKee’s and Neronha’s offices did not specify what evidence the bridge litigators were trying to preserve nor why they didn’t opt to do so sooner. A spokesperson from the Attorney General’s Office, which is leading the state’s lawsuit, did not respond to inquiry on the matter.
Max Wistow, one of the outside attorneys hired by the state for the lawsuit, declined to comment.
Roger Williams University School of Law Professor Michael Yelnosky called the state’s decision to pause “a reasonable thing to do.”
“We need actual evidence to convince the finder of fact that one or more of these defendants did something wrong,” he said.
Failure to preserve relevant parts of the bridge, he said, could constitute spoliation — when one side suspects or finds that the other party has deliberately, negligently or accidentally destroyed evidence.
“The court can sanction you for that,” Yelnosky said. “And the sanction could include things like instructing the jury that from the absence of this critical piece of evidence — it would hurt the state’s case.”
Attorney General Peter Neronha confirmed to WPRO’s Matt Allen Tuesday morning that he wants to make sure there are no accusations of spoliation.
“We are fighting to make sure, for example, that as this bridge comes down, the parts that we need preserved at a separate site to make sure we can litigate this case, so that we don’t get an objection that the evidence has been destroyed, that’s our principal concern yesterday and today,” Neronha said.
Yelnosky said the 13 firms have a right to have access to the evidence they need to defend their case as part of the discovery process.
“I think what’s jarring is that, for some reason, this just occurred to someone,” he said. “You would have thought that in bringing the litigation — somebody would have said early on that this means some or all of the destruction will have to be delayed for some time.”
What does this mean for the demolition timeline?
Aetna Bridge Co., which is among the 13 firms being sued by the state, has been tearing down the westbound highway over the last three weeks — first starting with asphalt removal in August and recently removing portions of the bridge deck.
The halt means the Rhode Island Department of Transportation is delaying the planned weeklong closure of parts of Waterfront Drive in East Providence, which was originally scheduled to begin Tuesday night, spokesperson Charles St. Martin said Wednesday.
Ken Block, a two-time gubernatorial candidate and founder of Watchdog RI who has been a vocal critic of the McKee administration, reacted to the news on social media Wednesday morning saying the “lack of urgency to make this bridge whole again is stunning.”
“The sheer incompetency we are witnessing would make for a decent sitcom if it weren’t for the fact that the consequences of this bridge disaster are seriously impacting anyone who has to cross the bridge,” Block said.
The superstructure of the bridge was expected to be torn down by the end of January, according to the proposal Aetna submitted to RIDOT. The state required the demolition to be complete by March 2025 in its bid request. St. Martin declined to state whether this pause would push back the demolition timeline.
The lack of a timeframe may be frustrating, but Yelnosky said that’s what happens during ongoing litigation.
“People want the bridge to be fixed, but they also want the so-called Day of Reckoning that Gov. McKee referred to,” he said. “And you can’t have both right away.”
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