State sues Charlestown recycling company for the way one of its drivers storrowed a bridge on 128 in Danvers

MassDOT yesterday sued a Charlestown company whose driver was going down 128 with the back of his "rollback" flatbed in the upright position - at least until he slammed into the bottom of an overpass at Endicott Street in Danvers on Nov. 14, 2020.

Unlike the box trucks that typically cause no damage when their careless drivers storrow on a river road, Save That Stuff's heavy-duty truck "caused substantial damage to the support beams" - damage that took more than $1 million to repair, MassDOT charges.

Although the department's suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, only names Save That Stuff, it makes clear in its complaint that its real issue is with the company's insurer, Mapfre, which it says went out of its way to dawdle on reimbursing the state for the repairs until after a three-year statute of limitations had passed, after which it essentially told the state: Sorry, we're not paying because three years have passed, toodles.

So instead MassDOT is now suing Save That Stuff for negligence, because its driver should never have been driving on a highway with the back of his flatbed in the upright position.

MassDOT, represented by the state Attorney General's office, says it shouldn't have to eat the costs just because Mapfre was playing games for more than a year, biding its time until it could just stamp the state's demand as denied.

MassDOT says it submitted its first claim to Mapfre just two weeks after the collision, for roughly $24,000 in temporary claims - Mapfre paid just $17,000 - and then, after a contractor was hired and repaired the overpass, sent a final bill for $1.08 million on Aug, 28, 2023. The state says it took that long to submit a bill because of the complexities of bridge repair, something it says Mapfre knew and agreed to.

At no point, the state says, did Mapfre contest the driver was in the wrong and the company at fault, that the insurer agreed it was financially responsible and that the only question was how much it would have to pay.

The state charges that Mapfre pulled such alleged stunts as repeatedly changing the adjusters assigned to the case, replying to requests for status updates by saying the matter was still "under review," asking for detailed documentation on repair plans for work that had already been completed, even bringing up another storrowing in Medford that had nothing to do with Mapfre.

The state says at least some Mapfre adjusters acknowledged the time for all the paper shuffling was "tolled" - or excluded from statute of limitations calculations, because the state had been actively pursuing a claim from the beginning.

But then, on April 23 of this year, the state says, Mapfre's lawyer wrote MassDOT that the company was denying the claim because it was now past the three-year statute time.

Mapfre, on behalf of Save that Stuff, repeatedly made statements and took actions which it knew or should have known would lull and/or induce MassDOT to refrain from filing suit prior to the three-year anniversary of the subject accident. ...

As a result of the statements and conduct by Mapfre, on behalf of Save That Stuff, upon which MassDOT reasonably relied, Save That Stuff is estopped from asserting a statute of limitations defense in this matter.

Save That Stuff has until Nov. 29 to respond to the suit, according to court records.

This is not the first suit by MassDOT over bridge storrowings on state roads. In June, the department sued an Alabama trucking company whose driver it says storrowed a bridge over I-93 in Medford with the giant tank he was hauling, causing $2.65 million in damage. In 2022, the state sued a truck driver from upstate New York for the alleged double storrowing he did with the boom of an excavator he was hauling on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Complete complaint (3.5M PDF).