Nearly two years after Theodore Meiners fell to his death from an escalator inside the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, a lawyer representing Meiners' estate has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and the center's operators.
Lawyer Phillip Paul Weidner filed the lawsuit Aug. 13 in Anchorage Superior Court. The suit, which demands at least $400,000 in damages on behalf of Meiners' estate and two adult children, accuses center managers of serving Meiners alcohol even when he was visibly intoxicated and alleges code and safety problems with the center's escalator.
The Municipality of Anchorage is named in the lawsuit, as is the nonprofit that oversees the center's finances, CIVICVentures Inc., and its predecessor, Downtown Anchorage Civic Ventures. SMG of Alaska, the company that operates the center, is also named.
The allegations revolve around the construction and design of the Dena'ina Center escalator as well as the events leading up to Meiners' death.
Meiners, owner and operator of the Alaska Rendezvous Heli-Guides, was known as a heli-skiing pioneer with an extensive background in ski and avalanche safety instruction.
On the night of Sept. 20, 2012, Meiners, of Valdez, was attending a banquet for the International Snow Science Workshop, a biennial gathering of snow science researchers and avalanche professionals.
Shortly after leaving the banquet hall, Meiners boarded the escalator going down. About a third of the way down, at about 10:50 p.m., he fell over the side of the escalator and plummeted two stories, nearly 47 feet, to the lobby floor, according to police reports.
Witnesses performed CPR, according to police, but Meiners was declared dead at the scene.
Among other accusations, the lawsuit alleges that city building inspectors and supervisors, during construction of the Dena'ina Center, willfully "overlooked or ignored" code and design problems with the escalator that could have prevented a fatal fall.
Weidner, the lawyer for Meiners' estate, also accused the city of prioritizing the timely completion of the project over safety. The center opened in October 2008 at a price tag of $111 million.
"The tragedy could and should have been avoided if the city had simply followed the applicable codes and not overlooked the hazard due to their desire to complete the center on time and under budget," Weidner said in a phone interview.
Those allegations are disputed by Anchorage's municipal attorney, Dennis Wheeler, who also serves as president of the board of CIVICVentures. In an interview Monday, Wheeler pointed to surveillance footage that he says shows Meiners trying to ride down the escalator on the handrail. He said it was an apparent attempt by Meiners to "plank," a kind of stunt that involves lying face-down in unusual places.
The video, which Wheeler provided to Alaska Dispatch News, shows Meiners walking up to the escalator holding a lime green jacket. He boards the escalator by himself and then appears to turn to the right and lean over the railing.
Over the course of a few seconds, Meiners appears to slip forward and out of sight of the camera.
Wheeler said that after Meiners' fall, the city building official and the escalator company conducted a "thorough review," examining the escalator for problems in operation and code compliance.
"Everything I've seen is, we're in code compliance. And the fact of the matter is, no matter how safe an escalator is, it's not designed for people to try to perform stunts on them," Wheeler said.
Weidner said he had also seen the surveillance footage and disagreed with Wheeler's interpretation.
"He definitely was not performing any stunt," Weidner said. "If anything, his coat got caught in the escalator and caused him to lose balance. And that may well have been exacerbated by the intoxication."
Weidner said the plaintiffs' team had found a witness -- whom he described as a "former city employee" -- who "warned the city of the dangers and was rebuffed."
"The (escalator) guard was not high enough to prevent someone from falling over the side of the escalator, which is what occurred," Weidner said.
Told of the allegation that a city employee had warned of dangers in advance, Wheeler said the city will "have to investigate to see if we agree with that conclusion or not."
Reached by phone Friday, James Dougherty, general manager for RIM Architects, which designed the Dena'ina Center along with LMN Architects, said he was unaware of the lawsuit and did not want to comment until he knew more about the allegations. Neither RIM nor LMN is named as a party in the lawsuit.
"From our standpoint, everything was built per code," Dougherty said.
The lawsuit also accuses employees of SMG of Alaska of serving Meiners alcohol past the point when he was visibly intoxicated. Selling or giving alcohol to someone who is already drunk is illegal under state law.
According to the complaint filed by Weidner, a toxicology test found that Meiners had a blood-alcohol level of .235 when he died -- nearly three times the legal limit for driving.
Wheeler said the municipality has an operational contract with SMG, which in turn has procedures for contracting with other entities to use the space, including requirements for the service of alcohol.
"I would have to say I don't have information in regards to all of the contracts, and how that was arranged, and what was actually done," Wheeler said.
Joe Wooden, general manager of SMG of Alaska, was reached by phone Friday. He declined to speak about what he referred to as an "ongoing legal matter."
"We won't have any comment at this time," he said.
Meiners' daughter, Alexandra Meiners, had attended the workshop with her father that day and had briefly left the Dena'ina Center when the fall occurred, according to the complaint.
Alerted to the accident, she returned to the center and saw her father lying on the floor shortly after he was pronounced dead, a sight that has caused her "extreme emotional distress," according to the complaint. As well as filing suit with the estate, Alexandra Meiners is individually bringing suit for negligent infliction of emotional stress, according to the complaint.
Theodore Meiners is recalled in online memorials, tributes and news articles as a leading snow scientist and pioneer in the field of heli-skiing in Alaska, as well as an experienced skiing and avalanche safety instructor. He worked in the mid-1990s at Valdez Heli Ski Guides as a lead guide and logistics manager, and later bought land on the Richardson Highway to build Alaska Rendezvous Lodge.
According to a memorial posted on the Alaska Rendezvous Heli-Guides website, Meiners' research on avalanche survival strategy first appeared at the International Snow Science Workshop in 2010, in the form of a paper he co-authored with two other snow scientists.
At the 2012 workshop in Anchorage, Meiners had presented a paper that "introduced a new vernacular for probe searches in the event of an avalanche," according the online memorial.