Insurer's Six-Year Stonewalling Triggers $91 Million Bad-Faith Judgment in Longfellow Bridge Case

On May 9, 2014, John Rooney, Jr., a union mason steward with 27 years of experience, fell more than five feet through a two-foot gap in inadequately planked scaffolding inside a tower on the Longfellow Bridge rehabilitation project in Boston. He landed on concrete debris and sustained catastrophic injuries to his back, neck, and legs that required nine surgeries, including multiple spinal fusions leaving his spine largely fused with plates and screws. He has not been able to work since.

In August 2021, after an eight-day trial in Middlesex County, a jury found the construction joint venture White-Skanska-Consigli liable. The verdict was $26.6 million. With pre-judgment interest, the compensatory judgment grew to roughly $45.5 million. Andrew Abraham of Keches Law Group served as lead trial counsel, along with co-counsel Melissa Brennan of Feinberg, Dumont and Brennan.

The case did not end there. Rooney brought a separate Chapter 93A/176D bad-faith action against the three Liberty Mutual entities that insured the construction joint venture: Peerless Insurance Company, Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and Ohio Casualty Insurance Company. After a ten-day bench trial before Justice Debra Squires-Lee in the Suffolk Superior Court Business Litigation Session, the court found in September 2025 that the insurers had willfully violated Massachusetts' unfair claims settlement statutes. The opinion concluded the carriers had 'deliberately closed their eyes to known and available information' and refused to investigate or attempt settlement despite a reasonably clear liability picture, maintaining an unsupported defense theory for six years.

Under Chapter 93A, a willful violation requires the court to double or treble the underlying judgment. Justice Squires-Lee applied a two-times multiplier to the $45.5 million compensatory amount, producing a total award of $90,971,612, plus attorneys' fees. She separately acknowledged the underlying compensatory figure was 'grossly excessive' but concluded that Massachusetts statute and controlling precedent gave her no discretion to reduce it before applying the multiplier. The Liberty Mutual entities are expected to appeal.

The judgment is among the largest reported bad-faith insurance awards in Massachusetts history and drew attention across the insurance industry for its illustration of the exposure carriers face when they ignore defense counsel's case assessments in favor of outside trial observers.