Despite the uplifting news of a nearly $1 billion settlement in the Surfside condo collapse case, the ordeal of divvying up that massive sum isn’t over. And the process looms as difficult and potentially heartbreaking for some relatives of the 98 people who died in the tragedy last summer.
Still suffering from the wrenching personal loss, families will now have to file claims for loved ones that spell out age, occupation and earnings, among other economic factors, so that a pair of administrators and a judge can put an exact value on each lost life. Some, under an approach that is standard in loss of life settlements, will invariably be “worth” more than others.
“It’s going to be extremely painful — I’m tearing up as I speak,” said lawyer Pablo Rodriguez, 41, whose 64-year-old mother Elena Blasser and 88-year-old grandmother Elenea Chavez were staying in the family’s 11th floor condo at Champlain Towers South when it collapsed in the middle of the night.
