Digital Extra: The Station Fire

The families of four employees killed in the fire have not received workers' compensation payments, because the club owners did not carry insurance.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, March 3, 2005

BY LYNN ARDITI
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Lawyers representing the families of four Station nightclub employees killed in the fire of Feb. 20, 2003, will ask a state Workers' Compensation Court judge today to order the nightclub's owners, Michael and Jeffrey Derderian, to pay death benefits and lost wages.

The state workers' compensation law entitles the family of someone who dies on the job to receive $15,000 in 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 blaze were Tracy F. King, 39, Dina Ann DeMaio, 30, Steven R. Mancini, 39, and his wife, Andrea Louise Jacavone Mancini, 28.

The petitions for workers' compensation benefits are scheduled to be heard today by Judge Bruce Q. Morin.

The fire at the roadside nightclub in West Warwick began when a tour manager for the rock band Great White set off a pyrotechnics display that ignited packing foam used as soundproofing on the walls and the 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, families of the four nightclub workers who died have so far have received no workers' compensation benefits.

(Several employees who worked at The Station told The Journal after the fire that the Derderians routinely paid them in cash, off the books.)

Last August, a state Workers' Compensation Court judge ordered the Derderians 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.

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.

Lawyers representing families of the four nightclub workers killed in the blaze filed petitions for state workers' compensation benefits on Jan. 31, just 20 days before the nightclub fire's two-year anniversary when the statute of limitations for filing such claims was scheduled to expire.

The families of King and DeMaio are seeking benefits on behalf of dependents, according to the petitions.

King, who lived in Warwick, was a laborer for the city's highway department and worked part-time as a bouncer at The Station. The petition lists four dependents: his wife, Evelyn, and their three sons, Jordan, 14, Joshua, 10, and Jacob, 9. King's total wages at the time of his death were $820 per week, according to the petition.

DeMaio, a single mother who lived in West Warwick, was working full-time as a legal secretary at Textron Financial Corp. and part-time as a waitress at The Station. The petition is filed on behalf of her son, Justin Perry DeMaio, by Stephen Beardsworth of Norway, Maine. Beardsworth is Justin DiMaio's legal guardian and cousin of Dina Ann DiMaio. At the time of DeMaio's death, her son was 7. DeMaio was earning approximately $732.09 per week, according to the petition.

The wage estimates in both the King and DeMaio petitions are based on their full-time jobs, as well as their part-time work at The Station.

Petitions filed in the cases of Andrea and Steven Mancini, of Johnston, are seeking death benefits.

Steven Mancini played guitar in the band Fathead, which opened for Great White on the night of the fire, and checked IDs at the door. He was working at the nightclub along with his wife of 15 months.

Michael A. St. Pierre, the lawyer who filed the petitions on behalf of DeMaio's son and Andrea Mancini, yesterday declined to comment on the case.

Michael S. Schwartz, the lawyer representing Steven Mancini and Tracy King, did not return phone messages left at his office yesterday.

Schwartz and St. Pierre also are representing Station fire victims in separate civil lawsuits pending in federal court. The civil lawsuits are expected to seek monetary damages far in excess of the pending workers' compensation claims.

Yet even one of the lawyers who represents plaintiffs in the civil case has concluded that the Derderians do not have enough money to compensate all the fire victims.

Besides the civil lawsuits, the Derderians and the former tour manager for Great White, Daniel M. Biechele, also are facing criminal charges. The three men each face 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter. All three have pleaded not guilty.

The criminal trial is not expected to begin for at least a year.

Lynn Arditi, a Journal staff writer, can be reached at (401) 277-7335 or by e-mail at larditi [at] projo.com