Digital Extra: The Station Fire

About $600,000 will go toward those two causes while the final $400,000 will be used as contingency, such as continuing to pay for the short-term needs of some survivors, says the Rev. John Holt, executive minister of the Rhode Island Council of Churches and chairman of the relief fund.

CHICAGO -- The Chicago City Council, after hearing testimony from the father of a woman killed in The Station nightclub fire, is considering a measure that would require all new and substantially remodeled nightclubs to be equipped with sprinkler systems.

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Heather Gauvin spent the night looking for her mother.

A three-judge appeals panel of the state Workers' Compensation Court has upheld a penalry of more than $1 million against the company that owns The Station nightclub for failure to carry the mandatory workers' compensation insurance.

First it was CSI. Now it's Law & Order.

A group led by House Speaker William J. Murphy is taking steps to put the site of the Station nightclub fire in the hands of a private nonprofit corporation that would build a memorial there.

U.S. District Court Judge Dominic J. Squatrito, in a written decision filed Oct. 3, acknowledges that it will be less convenient for the Connecticut plaintiffs to have their lawsuit heard in Providence and that travel time could increase the cost of pursuing their claims.

The standing-room-only crowd that came to hear the arguments on the jurisdictional question represented a who's-who of the Rhode Island trial bar and a bevy of well-known trial lawyers from throughout the United States. Most of the out-of-state lawyers present were representing parties who have been sued in connection with the Feb. 20 fire in West Warwick, in which 100 people died and more than 200 were injured. The fire broke out after the rock band Great White set off pyrotechnics, which ignited highly flammable packing foam that the owners of The Station had installed as soundproofing.

Lawyers representing victims of the fire as well as parties who have been sued or expect to be sued will argue their positions on the jurisdictional issue. Some want Lagueux to retain jurisdiction of all the civil fire cases in the federal court. Others want the cases sent back to the state Superior Court, Providence, where most of them were originally filed. The cases will probably be consolidated for trial in one court.

PROVIDENCE -- Almost 50 lawyers, many of them from out of state, packed into the courtroom of Senior U.S. District Court Judge Ronald R. Lagueux today for a hearing to determine where civil lawsuits stemming from The Station nightclub fire will be decided.

Tomasso rushes over to shake the inspector's hand, then trails him around the empty nightclub. Armed with a clipboard and a Life Safety Code book, Joseph Michalczyk scans the place like a detective searching for evidence. Sprinklers? Yes. Exit doors? Three. Emergency lights? No. Fire extinguishers? No.

At 10 a.m. next Wednesday, lawyers representing victims of the fire as well parties who have been sued or expect to be sued will argue their positions on the jurisdictional issue.

That raises the total number inside the building to 430.

Her name was Erin. And that was all they knew.