FDNY Families Settle Suit For $29.5M in 'Black Sunday' Case

A $29.5 million settlement has been reached with the families of FDNY firefighters killed or injured when they were forced to jump from a Bronx apartment fire in 2005 in an event that became known as “Black Sunday.”

According to an article posted in the New York Daily News, the suit centered on FDNY’s failure to provide personal safety ropes. The department had taken away ropes in 2000 that were provided to allow firefighters a means to escape burning buildings, like the ones firefighters encountered on Jan. 23, 2005. FDNY has since returned to providing firefighters with escape ropes and hooks.

The newspaper reported five firefighters and a lieutenant responded to the call just off the Grand Concourse and became trapped in a smoky maze of illegally subdivided apartments. As flames advanced, the trapped men jumped from the building’s fourth floor.

Two firefighters were killed and four others were badly hurt. Lt. Curtis Meyran, 46, of Battalion 26, and Firefighter John Bellew, 37, of Ladder Co. 27, were killed on impact.

Six years later, Firefighter Joseph DiBernardo died from his injuries. three surviving firefighters, Eugene Stolowski, Jeffrey Cool and Brendan Cawley survived, but sustained life-changing injuries, the newspaper reported.

The families' lawyers told the newspaper those involved in the case just wanted to move on and decided to settle the case rather than go to an appeals court and risk having the verdict reduced.

 “They wanted to find some peace in their lives and put this behind them,” attorney Vito Cannavo told the Daily News. “They proved the point they wanted to make, that the city was wrong in taking away those ropes.”

Including Monday’s settlement, the families will receive a total of about $80 million including a separate settlement agreement with the E.178th St., tenement’s owners reached in February.

The settlement, for $29.5 million, brings the total the families will receive in damages from the “Black Sunday” disaster to about $80 million, including a separate agreement reached with the E. 178th St. tenement’s owner right before a Bronx jury gave its whopping $183 million verdict in February.

A lawyer from the city’s Law Department told the paper the settlement was “fair and in the best interests of the city.”