[Music] my name is Paul spenden I'm professor of law at Liberty University School of Law we're going to talk about the Hyatt Regency collapse in Kansas City in July of 1981 when the uh collapse occurred I was Assistant Attorney General assigned uh the duty of providing legal advice to the miss Miss Board of Architects Professional Engineers and land surveyors the the board looked to me with uh for guidance as to how the uh investigation should occur we were basically uh looking to see uh how to gather evidence and to present it in anticipation of litigation so it fell my role to take the lead as to how that investigation should come about on July 17th 1981 uh uh the H Regency Hotel uh was staging a tea dance where as was this custom through the summer every Friday evening I believe it was every Friday evening would hold a a special dance in its Atrium it was the it was the new hotel in town it was where people liked to gather and so thousands gathered on July 17th uh to to celebrate the the new building the new environment and to and to dance and at about 7:00 uh finally the fourth one of the four floor Bridges failed slept of its of its connection and the bridges collapsed and 114 people who were dancing underneath it were killed and hundreds of others were were injured the the cause of the of the collapse occurred as a result of the failure of the uh of any engineer to do uh engineering uh uh calculations on the steel to Steel connections on the on the bridges that span the The Atrium in the Kansas City hotel it was it was basically a lack of communication it was the it was the expectation of the professional engineer uh that all he had to do was come up with a basic design concept is or at least that's the way I understood his his position and then once he was done with that uh with that basic design and released his drawings to the fabricator and the erector and the other Engineers that might be uh involved in the project his job was was done it was over he didn't need to take any further responsibility so he kind of had a team concept about the his approach to uh to the work on the Hyatt Regency um I have one aspect of the the of the design work my job is done I don't need to worry about communicating with with any of the other uh Engineers or taking any responsibility for seeing that others are doing their job the board had an entirely different uh understanding of his responsibilities in light of Missouri law Missouri law we thought was very clear that when an engineer takes upon an an engineering project and places his seal upon uh that that project he is taking full respons responsibility for all engineering aspects of that job unless he is very clear to communicate to others that that he's not doing that and in this case there was no such uh qualifications there was no reservation by the engineer uh the structural engineers uh Jack D Gillum and and Associates Jack Gillum and Dan Duncan assume responsibility for their contract said all engineering on the Hyatt project uh and uh prepared as part of the design team the basic structural drawings including the steel to- steel connections that that made up the uh the walkways that span the The Atrium but when they were finished with those those drawings and placed their seal upon them there were no qualifications no restrictions as to what their Assumption of responsibility UH responsibilities were and they passed them off to the fabricator when Haven steel the fabricator on the on the project began to took the uh the concept drawings uh that he received from the structural engineer Jack Gillum and and Dan Duncan and began to prepare shop drawings for the purpose of erection and preparation of the steel and erection of the of the steel he noticed that there was a a real problem with the concept of the bridges the bridges were intended uh for the second floor bridge to be immediately under the fourth floor bridge and that they were to be connected with a single continuous Rod the uh the fabricator developed an a concern that that may not be possible to erect in the field um and it may not even be possible to find a rod of that length and so with those two uh problems in mind he uh the evidence that we presented to uh the uh administrative law judge that heard the case was that uh the fabricator William Richie uh called Dan Duncan the lead structural engineer and said we've got a problem we need to look at this we think that there may be a solution let's split the rod at the fourth floor terminate the rod from the ceiling at the fourth floor bridge and begin a new rod from the fourth floor Bridge down to the the second floor bridge and uh uh the evidence that we presented was that Dan Duncan responded that's a that's a good solution draw it up on the shop drawings and I will take a look at it when those shop drawings come back in um uh to the office um we presented evidence that indeed the technician going over the shop drawings when they arrived back at Jack Gillum and and Associates found the difference noticed it instantly and went into Dan Duncan and uh and said there's been a change and uh Mr Duncan's response was I'm aware of the change I've talked to the fabricator it's okay and so no calculations no calculations have been done by the fabricator of the change because he had been uh told that it would be checked and and calculated back at the structural engineers office uh Dan for whatever reason Dan Duncan decided that the calculations had already been done and did not calculate the the connection there was a another telephone call to Dan Duncan from the architect on the project herb Duncan asking about the the change the the split and the rise he was certainly concerned about the aesthetic uh impact on the project but he also was very uh uh circumspect to ask about the safety is this going to impact tax safety in any way and the response that he got from Dan Duncan the evidence that we presented at the at the proceedings was that Mr Duncan's response is no problem with safety it's okay and so uh with no calculations being done on that steel to- steel connection with a split Rod configuration uh the the bridges were erected and were was doomed for failure the the hotel uh after ere was open for about a year before the failure occurred in July of 1981 in the middle of construction I believe it was October of 1979 early one Sunday morning with the onset of cold weather uh the connections failed in the atrium the building was was not complete wasn't nearly complete it was still rough in rough stages uh uh but the connections fail and all of the atrium steel steel fell to the to the floor if the hotel had been open and that had occurred there would have been many more than 114 people died that day the owner of the of the hotel uh Hallmark became very concerned that it had an unsafe building so it convened all of the professionals The Architects the Professional Engineers everyone and hired in a very special in inspector siden and paage to look into the situation there was a there was instruction given as I understand it uh to Jack Gillum and and Associates to recheck all of the steel to Steel Connections in the building later uh at a later meeting uh there was reassurance given to the architect and to the owner that indeed that had occurred uh that Greg Luth at Jack Gillum and Associates had gone over the entire building and had looked at the steel to Steel Connections in including the bridges specifically said including the bridges the walkways that span The Atrium uh and we have checked those connections uh for compliance and in fact that was not done it was it was an an untruth and it was a missed opportunity to realize no calculation had been done on the bridge connections as I recall the testimony at the at the proceedings in asked to explain why that was the case why would the Greg Luth not do what he had indicated check all of the steel to Steel connections the answer was well we spot checked and we just didn't hit the bridges we would have done more but we weren't being paid ignorance of the law was was astounding the experts that were presented by uh Mr Duncan and and Mr Gillum at the proceedings uh pared the positions that they had taken that well no uh in fact uh there were there were times in the proceedings where uh the experts for the other side would be shown the law and say are you aware of those kinds of expectations and and they would Express surprise that uh that the law would impose those obligations upon them well I was astounded as a member of the public looking to Professional Engineers to protect me uh from the uh the uh the traps of a of a dangerous building uh that there would be Professional Engineers who were unaware of what the law uh what the Law's obligations were and what what UH responsibilities it imposed upon them and I can only think that there must be some failure in engineering schools to communicate to uh to Young Engineers or young would be Engineers uh what what you do and the entire engineering project if you're going to be the structural engineer on a building project but if you're not let somebody know the expectation is that you will communicate with all of the professionals uh that are involved the the architect with the fabricator and his Engineers uh and and and you're not merely an insular isolated team player but you are you are the leader of structural engineer unless you make it clear that that's not your role and and then if we're aware of what your what Your Role is then the architect and the owner on a project can can take appropriate steps the law in Missouri is very clear that if an engineer takes that position that he must be very careful that he communicates that expectation to all the parties involved if he doesn't communicate if he says nothing as happened in this situation then who else are we going to uh to look to for responsibility but to uh but to to him so Dan Duncan by virtue of not knowing the law not following that practice uh set in place a a collapse that was needless had no reason to occur after 27 days of of uh trial-like proceedings in front of an administrative law judge who who rendered more than 400 pages of findings of fact and conclusions of law in in this case uh declaring that uh Jack Gillum and Dan Duncan had violated The Practice Act of Missouri for professional Engineers uh the board decided that it would revoke the licenses of th those two gentlemen and the firm for which uh they were gec uh uh GCE Consultants uh two courts the circuit courts of Missouri and the Missouri court of appeals reviewed that decision quite extensively and affirmed the decision being lary of depending upon Structural Engineers to be able to suspend Bridges by by quarter an inch rods uh the owner decided that to regain any kind of confidence in in the public for his for his hotel uh that he would have to to replace those bridges so suspend suspended Bridges uh with bridges that rested upon columns that not only that were big round columns that went to the floor but that went through the floor and went all the way down to a Bedrock I'm not even certain an earth Quake would take out the bridges today