Fatal Erie fire lawsuit settled

May 04--The last remaining defendants have agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to end a long-running civil rights lawsuit stemming from a 2010 apartment fire that killed two Erie women.

Terms of the agreement between the survivors of fire victims Tyreesha Richardson, 31, and Gwyneth Henry, 44, and the defendants, Brett C. and Patricia A. Hammel, and an insurer, Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Co., were not made part of the record in U.S. District Court.

In the order closing the case, Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. noted that the settlement "shall remain confidential, personal, private and privileged."

With the settlement, the defendants admitted to no wrongdoing.

The plaintiffs had alleged that the Hammels, who owned the apartment building at 918 W. 18th St., negligently failed to provide a safe escape from the attic.

"I am happy that the families are able to bring closure to this matter, but nothing will replace two mothers, and nothing will ever compensate for what these five children have experienced," the plaintiffs' lawyer, John Mizner, said.

The defendants' lawyer, Mark Mioduszewski, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The women were found dead in a third-floor bedroom of the house after a fire broke out July 25, 2010.

An investigation determined that someone sloshed gasoline up the stairs to the women's apartment and then set the fuel ablaze.

The criminal investigation of the arson has resulted in no arrests.

When the lawsuit was filed in October 2010, it also named Erie Housing Authority officials as defendants. The complaint claimed that the women's apartment remained in the Section 8 housing program, even though repeat inspections showed that required fire protection measures had never been installed.

The defendants countered that the Erie Housing Authority did not approve the apartment for inclusion in the Section 8 program until after the deficiencies had been corrected.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that the housing officials could not be sued under the theory that they created a danger.

The court said for the women's families to prove the housing officials' alleged actions amounted to a "state-created danger," the plaintiffs would have to show that officials' actions were a more direct cause of the fire.

The Housing Authority defendants were subsequently dismissed from the case.

LISA THOMPSON can be reached at 870-1802 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNthompson.

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