Digital Extra: The Station Fire

05:33 PM EST on Thursday, March 3, 2005

By LYNN ARDITI
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- A state Workers' Compensation Court judge today ordered the owners of The Station nightclub to pay more than $200,000 for funeral expenses and lost wages to the families of a waitress, a bouncer and two security workers killed in the disastrous fire at the club two years ago.

Judge Bruce Q. Morin said that the nightclub's owners, brothers Michael and Jeffrey Derderian, and their company, Derco LLC, are ``jointly and individually'' liable for the workers' compensation benefits of the four employees.

The Derderians' lawyers said they plan to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

The state law entitles the family of someone who dies on the job to receive $15,000 to cover funeral costs, also known as death benefits, plus a portion of the deceased person's lost wages. Dependent children are entitled to benefits until age 18 or, if they are in college, age 23.

The nightclub workers who died in the Feb. 20, 2003, blaze were: Tracy F. King, 39; Dina Ann DeMaio, 30; Steven R. Mancini, 39, and his wife, Andrea Louise Jacavone Mancini, 28.

Judge Morin ruled the families of the Mancinis, King and DeMaio should each receive $15,000 in death or burial benefits.

He also ordered the club's owners to pay $818.10 weekly to King's family and $732.90 weekly to DeMaio's son and gaurdian. Those payments are retroactive to the time of the fire, and continue until the children reach legal age, or if King's wife remarries.

Barbara Magness, Steven Mancini's mother, said she was happy to receive some compensation, but the money wasn't why she took legal action.

"Why shouldn't (the Derderians) be held accountable for what they did?" Magness told The Associated Press.

Jeffrey Pine, attorney for Jeffrey Derderian, said, "The bottom line is (the Derderians) have always wanted to compensate the families of their employees. The issue has always been to reach some sort of settlement on that."

Michael St. Pierre, DeMaio's attorney, was cautious about the ruling.

"I think it's going to be difficult to come up with what they have to pay for these four families," he said.

The fire at the roadside nightclub in West Warwick began when the rock band Great White set off a pyrotechnics display that ignited cheap packing foam used as soundproofing on the walls and ceiling. The fire killed 100 people and injured more than 200, some of them critically.

About two weeks after the fire, state labor officials discovered that the Derderians had never purchased the required workers' compensation coverage. As a result, the families of the four nightclub workers who died in the blaze have so far have received no workers' compensation benefits.

Last August, a state workers' compensation court judge ordered the Dederians to be held personally liable for a $1.06-million fine against their company, Derco LLC, for failing to carry the required coverage. The Derderians are appealing the ruling.

In addition to providing benefits to workers and their families, workers compensation insurance generally shields a business and its owners from liability in connection with job-related injuries or deaths.

-- With reports from The Associated Press