ALBANY — A judge this week ordered the firm that built the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo bridge to pay $1.69 million in attorneys fees and expenses to the legal team that represented a whistleblower who accused the construction company of covering up defects in the high-strength bolts used to build the twin span.
The ruling by state Supreme Court Justice Joan B. Lefkowitz came a little more than a year after Tappan Zee Constructors, a consortium made up of American Bridge Co., Fluor Corp., Traylor Bros., Inc., and Granite Construction, agreed to pay $2 million to settle the whistleblower's case with the state. The company has denied the allegations leveled by the whistleblower, James S. McNall, who discovered that bolts were breaking at a bridge assembly site at the Port of Coeymans.
Attorneys for Tappan Zee Constructors had filed motions arguing that McNall's "out-of-state" attorneys were not entitled to legal fees incurred in the case, and that any fees that must be paid should be sharply lower. The judge did reduce the amount of legal fees that had been sought by McNall's attorneys — more than $1.8 million — but rejected the company's other arguments.
A Times Union investigation published last year revealed that the key officials in the construction firm had taken steps to conceal the issues with the bolts from safety inspectors.
A year ago, an appellate court unanimously rejected a request by Tappan Zee Constructors to keep the case permanently sealed.
The company had appealed...
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