Digital Extra: The Station Fire

A U.S. District Court judge rules that civil proceedings can move ahead against the owners of The Station before the criminal case is heard.

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, November 9, 2004

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A federal judge yesterday ordered Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, the owners of The Station, to answer the civil suits filed against them by victims of the fire at their nightclub but said the brothers cannot be deposed or made to answer more detailed questions that victims' lawyers might want to ask them at this point.

In a standing-room only hearing in U.S. District Court, Senior Judge Ronald R. Lagueux rejected an argument made by a lawyer representing the Derderians that the civil proceedings against them be postponed until their criminal case is resolved.

The brothers, along with Daniel Biechele, the former manager for the rock band Great White, each face 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at the West Warwick nightclub. The fire started when fireworks set off by Biechele ignited highly flammable foam that the Derderians had installed as soundproofing at the nightclub. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.

A date for the criminal trial, which will be held in the Rhode Island Superior Court, has not been set. But based on representations made yesterday and in a prior court hearing, the criminal case won't be tried until the second half of next year at the earliest. The trial of the victims' federal civil suits is also a long way off, with no date set.

One hundred people died in The Station fire and more than 200 others were injured. Most of the victims and their families have hired civil lawyers to help them recover damages for their losses.

In court yesterday, the Derderians' civil lawyer, Anthony F. DeMarco, argued that forcing the Derderians to respond to the civil suits at this point would jeopardize their right to a fair trial in the criminal case. He asserted that the allegations against the brothers in the victims' lawsuits -- that they contributed to overcrowding at their nightclub; installed defective, flammable material in the club; violated state law regarding pyrotechnics; and failed to provide proper exits and lighting at the club -- are the same allegations that their criminal case is based on.

"They're actually alleging in this [civil] complaint the commission of a crime," DeMarco argued. If the Derderians were required to answer the civil suits at this point, he says in court papers, they would have to assert their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and this could hurt their defense in the lawsuits.

But Steven A. Minicucci, one of the lawyers representing the fire victims, said that the victims could be irreparably harmed if the civil case against the Derderians was put on hold until after the criminal case was over.

"We don't know who all the defendants are," said Minicucci. Even if a jury were to determine that the Derderians were liable for monetary damages in the civil cases, "it's very clear" that they do not have sufficient money to compensate all the victims. Therefore, he said, the plaintiffs "need to be as diligent as possible" to seek out every possible defendant who could help pay a big judgment.

As owners of the nightclub for the three years preceding the fire, the Derderians, Minicucci asserted, are in a position to give the civil lawyers information that could lead them to as-yet-unknown parties with bigger pockets that could be sued for damages.

"We need to reconstruct a building that no set of blueprints exist for," he argued. "This was an old roadhouse," and the Derderians, he said, are in a unique position to provide information about what materials were in the club when they assumed ownership of it.

Minicucci also said that the civil lawyers need to learn from the Derderians the extent of their interactions with West Warwick town officials and the promoters of the Great White concert at The Station. The civil lawyers also want the Derderians to provide them with a list of prior employees who might have evidence about construction materials at the club, Minicucci said.

If they have to wait until after the criminal trial to get information from the brothers, he asserted, the civil statute of limitations might pass, which would make it impossible for them to add additional defendants to the civil suits. For some potential defendants, the statute of limitations for filing civil suits expires at the end of next year, Minicucci said.

Lagueux said he thought the Derderians were making "an unreasonable request" to delay answering the civil suits until their criminal case was over. He ordered them to do so, acknowledging that they might very well take the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer some of the allegations against them.

But the judge said that at this point, he was not going to allow the civil lawyers to depose the brothers or to force them to answer questions in the form of interrogatories posed by the lawyers as part of the pretrial discovery process. In fact, he said, he was going to delay the start of the entire pretrial discovery process "until well into the spring" because he first wants to address motions to dismiss that have been filed by several parties that have been sued by the fire victims.

The judge said he wants to hear the defendants' motions to dismiss before the lengthy pretrial discovery process begins because he does not want to make defendants who shouldn't have been sued by the victims' lawyers to have to bear unnecessary legal fees.