Top image: Grenfell Tower still burning at 4.43am on 14 June 2017, London (Natalie Oxford/CC By 4.0)
American attorneys have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against three US companies on behalf of 69 of the 72 people killed in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, and another 177 who were injured.
The lawyers are targeting Arconic, Celotex Corporation, and Whirlpool.
Arconic supplied the Reynobond Polyethylene Cladding (PE) panels on Grenfell, while Celotex supplied insulation used in Grenfell’s cladding system and Whirlpool owned the company responsible for manufacturing the fridge-freezer thought to be linked to the start of the fire, according to Global Construction Review.
The 143-count wrongful death and products liability complaint filed at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas demands a jury trial and seeks compensation and unspecified punitive damages on behalf of 247 Grenfell plaintiffs.
Lawyers for two firms – Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky (SMBB), and DiCello Levitt Gutzler – said Arconic’s Reynobond PE panels, which are cheaper than the fire-resistant alternative, could not be sold for high-rise buildings in the US, so the company “determined to exploit the European market and export the danger abroad that they couldn’t sell at home”.
For its part, Celotex knew its insulation was highly combustible and not fit for use in cladding, but “sold and supplied it to the Tower anyway”, the attorneys alleged.
For more on this story, click here.
