By William Murphy
Newsday (New York)
The city has agreed in recent months to pay $ 4.2 million to three firefighters who were injured in a Brooklyn fire in which two fire officers died, attorneys and city officials confirmed last week.
Lawyers for the three injured firefighters had argued that the city had failed to heed warnings about structural flaws in the city-owned apartment building at 2530 Atlantic Ave. in East New York.
The total settlement is expected to rise dramatically as the city negotiates claims by the families of the two dead fire officers, according to attorneys and officials familiar with the litigation.
The mayor's press office referred all questions about the settlements to the city Corporation Counsel's office, which did not return telephone calls for comment last week.
Other city officials, asking not to be identified, said the Fire Department and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development had since worked out a way of sharing information about violations in city-owned buildings that could be hazardous to firefighters.
Those violations would be stored in Fire Department computers and could be pulled up on computer screens in the cabs of fire units responding to emergencies in such buildings.
Lt. James Blackmore, 48, of Farmingdale, was killed almost immediately when the second floor collapsed into the basement of the building on June 5, 1998. Capt. Scott LaPiedra, 40, of Staten Island survived for a month.
Court documents show the $ 4.2 million in settlements were reached with Lt. Timothy Stackpole of Marine Park and Firefighters Brian Baker of Glendale and Terrence Quinn of Smithtown. The breakdown of each firefighter's compensation was not clear from court documents.
The settlements were negotiated by O'Brien, McLaughlin & Kenny, a Lynbrook-based law firm that filed a damage claim with the city on behalf of the firefighters and later sued in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.
The law firm argued in court papers that the city, in effect, had created "a trap" by certifying repairs that did not meet city housing codes and by allowing debris from squatters to accumulate in the building.
A report by the state Department of Labor on Nov. 13, 1998, concluded, "This fire did not go by the book."
The report blamed the city for its failure to adequately inspect the building and noted that firefighters rushed in because an eyewitness reported erroneously that a woman was trapped inside. But the report said the firefighters had "followed proper procedure."
Specifically, the report said, the city certified the building as safe after a weight-bearing wall in the basement was removed and was replaced by a shorter wall that led to the floor's collapsing.
