Suit Filed by Survivors of Four Houston Firefighters and City

The city of Houston has joined families of four firefighters who died in a fire in 2013 in suing the owners and operators of the southwest Houston motel and restaurant where the blaze broke out.

If the firefighters' families are successful in their negligence claim, the city could be repaid as much as $2.3 million, said plaintiffs attorney Ben Hall.

The fire on May 31, 2013, killed Capt. EMT Matthew Renaud, 35, and engineer operator EMT Robert Bebee, 41, both of Station 51, and firefighter EMT Robert Garner, 29, and probationary firefighter Anne Sullivan, 24, both from Station 68. Fourteen other firefighters were injured, including Capt. Bill Dowling, who lost both legs and has also filed a lawsuit.

Hall represents families of three of the fallen firefighters, save Renaud. The three families joined lawsuits filed by Renaud's family and Dowling, which have been pending, just before the two-year deadline to file suit.

The daytime inferno that was broadcast live by television crews started in an Indian restaurant and spread to the rest of the Southwest Inn in the 6800 block of the Southwest Freeway in Sharpstown triggering a deadly roof collapse, Hall said.

Because the restaurant owners knew the fire had been burning in a wall for at least two hours before the firefighters arrived, and did not tell the fire department about it, Hall said they were "excessively negligent."

The attorney representing the property owner, Criterium Systems, was not available for comment Tuesday.

Although there is precedent protecting property owners from claims by rescue personnel because it is foreseeable that firefighters may die in the line of duty, Hall said the accused negligence rises to a level beyond what the courts envisioned.

The lawyer said he believes the lawsuit asking for damages for each family to be paid in the range of $1 million to $5 million will be successful.

If the results are favorable to the families, the city of Houston has piggybacked on the claim and could be reimbursed as much as $2.3 million for what it paid after the deaths, confirmed City Attorney Donna Edmundson.

"Because the firefighters are suing a third party, the City has filed a petition in intervention seeking to recover benefits paid under the workers compensation act," Edmundson said by email. "This is a unique situation and if the firefighters are successful in their suit, the City may be reimbursed some of the medical costs and benefits which have been paid to the firefighters."

A state investigation criticizing how the fire was handled cited eight shortcomings in how the department fought the blaze in the restaurant portion of the hotel, where the roof caved in 15 minutes after firefighters arrived.

The Texas State Fire Marshal's Firefighter Fatality Investigation, which was released in 2014, showed the firefighters were sent in unprepared. It also laid out problems with the city's $138-million digital radio system - implemented one month before the fire - made communications "difficult if not impossible," hampering efforts to rescue trapped firefighters.

After the report was released, fire department officials defended their decisions and blamed employees at the motel's Bhojan Vegetarian Restaurant who later told officials they smelled smoke about 9 a.m., but found no sign of a fire.

When flames erupted just after noon, they called 911.

"When you have a devastating event, you're looking for somebody to blame," said Houston Fire Chief Terry Garrison. "What system can I blame, was it the radios, the engines, the firefighters? There is nothing to blame. The blame was that fire started at 9 in the morning and burned, and we weren't aware of it."

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