A UNITED States-based law firm sued business process outsourcing (BPO) company Survey Sampling International (SSI), now known as Dynata, as responsible for the deaths of 29 call center agents caused by the fire at New City Commercial Center (NCCC) on December 23, 2017.
Donald Nolan and Thomas Routh of Chicago-based Nolan Law Group and James Sullivan of the Connecticut firm of Howard, Kohn, Sprague & Fitzgerald reportedly filed the case at the Hartford Superior Court on December 20, three days away from the incident’s commemoration.
The case was filed against chief executive officer and president Christopher Mark Fanning and director and shareholder David Ian Weatherseed of SSI Philippines, the company’s affiliate in the country. In the complaint, the victims of the fire were represented by Joseph Decicco.
The lawyers claimed that the two executives contributed to the tragedy for compromising the fire safety facilities of their office at NCCC Mall and eventually endangered the lives of its workers. The complainant alleges that “the fourth floor was not equipped with a working fire alarm, that the fourth floor was not connected to the fire alarm systems on first, second and third floors. There were only two fire exits in the fourth floor which were inadequate for the number of people working in the space, one of the two exits was obstructed by steel lockers placed there, the two exit doors were in an open position allowing them to serve as a path for smoke and gas into the fourth floor, and fire dampers were not installed that would have prevented the rapid spread of gas and smoke to the fourth floor,” the law firm’s statement reads.
“To corporate executives, they only see numbers and output, bypassing ethics and basic human care,” Nolan said.
Nolan added the rebranding of SSI to Dynata on January 15, 2019 is the company’s way to be disassociated with the fire incident. The family members of the victims, through Decicco, demanded money damages and any other relief prescribed by law.
However, on December 22, 2018, City Prosecutor Nestor Ledesma said none of the executives of the NCCC Mall, SSI and Rockport companies may be sued for the incident as there was no participation nor act on the part of their board of officers. NCCC Mall renovation in charge engineer Wilson Velasquez, however, is the ones liable but the case against him was dismissed because of the affidavit of desistance from the surviving victims and their families.
Based on the result of the investigation of the Bureau of Fire Protection in Davao City (BFP-Davao City) on December 22, 2018, the BPO company allegedly failed in the simultaneous fire evacuation drills conducted by Davao City Fire District.
“Daghan ang nabagsak ug mahitabo nga di nato sila mahatagan og inspection certificate nga maoy usa sa ilang mga requirements sa pag-renew sa ilang mga business permit,” Davao City Fire District Intelligence Investigation Division, chief Senior Fire Officer (SFO) 3 Ramil Gillado said in a previous interview.
(Several have failed and we can’t give them inspection certificate which is one of their requirements to renew their business permit.)
Currently, there are 21 cases filed in Branch 3 and six cases in Branch 14 and other more cases at the Office of the Ombudsman related to the NCCC Mall fire.
SunStar Davao tried to reach to SSI Philippines through its landline number as indicated on its Facebook page to get their side but it was not accessible as of press time. (with reports from Juliet Revita and Jeepy Compio)