John Hancock Center Scaffold Collapse: $75 Million Settlement for the Killed and Injured

On March 9, 2002, a suspended work platform that was being stored near the 42nd floor of the John Hancock Center in Chicago broke loose in high winds. Wind speeds that afternoon reached about 35 mph with gusts to 56 mph. The outrigger holding the platform overturned, and the rig swung down the building's west face, breaking windows and dropping steel and glass onto East Chestnut Street below.

Three women in cars on the street were killed where they sat. In two of those cars, young women in the front seats died while their mothers watched from the back seat. Eight other people on the sidewalks and in traffic were hurt, and one of the injured later died of his injuries in 2005.

Investigators traced the failure to the platform's outrigger. Forensic engineers at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates inspected the debris, tested replacement wheels, ran wind tunnel studies on a scale model, and analyzed the wind loads. They tied the collapse to failure of the undercarriage wheels and the cable tie down system on the rear leg of the outriggers under downward wind pressure on the platform. Wheels 3 and a half inches in diameter had been swapped for ones as small as 1 and a half inches, friction clamps meant for windy conditions were never set, and the platform had not been lowered to the ground or raised to the roof as the operating guidelines required. The same investigation found that the architect's repair design did not contribute to the failure.

The cases were set for trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge William Maddux, presiding judge of the Law Division, at the Daley Center. Thomas Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio represented seven of the victims, including the families of the two young women killed in the front seats of their cars.

On the eve of trial in 2006, the defendants agreed to a $75 million global settlement covering ten people killed and injured in the collapse, resolved jointly across the plaintiffs' firms. Because the case ended in a negotiated settlement rather than a jury verdict, the figure was not subject to remittitur or reduction on appeal.

About five months after the collapse, Chicago passed an ordinance regulating scaffolding on buildings taller than eighty feet.