By DUANE BOURNE, The Virginian-Pilot - August 28, 2007
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA
The wooden deck that collapsed during a Sandbridge wedding party nearly two years ago had not been properly inspected, according to a lawsuit that accuses the owners of the rental home of negligence.
The third-floor deck tumbled onto a lower structure moments before a planned champagne toast in October 2005, sending 28 guests to the hospital with broken bones, scrapes and bruises.
Four of those guests, who sustained minor injuries, filed a lawsuit earlier this month, seeking $25,000 each from Earle and Patricia Mulrane, owners of “Sun Haven” and other vacation rentals managed by Sandbridge Homes LLC.
The plaintiffs – Allen Gallentine, William Whitehurst, Nicholas Whitehurst and Kyle Whitehurst – live in Hampton.
“We feel the homeowners failed to properly inspect the house before renting it out for the wedding,” said Neal Schulwolf, their attorney. “If they had done so, they would have realized there was some defect.”
The deck was constructed with a combination of bolts, single-galvanized nails and joist hangers. City officials who inspected the fallen structure concluded that the nails, joist hangers and other supports had weakened from rust, and snapped under too much weight.
The lawsuit contends that the owners failed to comply with code requirements that the attachment of wooden decks to a building be inspected twice yearly and that using nails was improper.
“A reasonable inspection would have shown that the construction method for securing the third-floor deck to the main structure was negligent and this negligence, combined with 10 years of ocean front exposure, was a disaster in waiting,” Schulwolf wrote in the complaint.
Before the wedding, the bride had asked whether the deck would accommodate an anticipated 70 guests, and a reservation supervisor for Sandbridge Homes had assured the bride that the deck had previously held many more people, the lawsuit said.
After the collapse, Earle Mulrane had vowed to rebuild.
In 2000, he bought the house at 2576 Sandfiddler Road for $450,000. The six-bedroom rental was built in 1992 and has six bedrooms, two whirlpool tubs and a fireplace. It is assessed at nearly $1.5 million, according to city records.
Telephone calls last week and on Monday to the Mulranes’ home in New Providence, N.J. , were not returned . According to the lawsuit, the company they own stopped providing property management services after the deck collapse.
Duane Bourne, (757) 222-5150,
duane.bourne@pilotonline.com
