The court-approved agreement resolves claims involving nearly 500 plaintiffs after the 2019 New Orleans construction disaster killed three workers.
NEW ORLEANS, LA — A Louisiana judge has approved a $106 million settlement resolving years of civil litigation over the deadly 2019 collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel construction project in downtown New Orleans.
Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese approved the combined settlement Aug. 6, bringing a major legal phase of the disaster to a close nearly seven years after the unfinished 18-story building partially collapsed. The consolidated case involved 490 plaintiffs and 21 defendants, according to court records and attorneys involved in the litigation. The plaintiffs included injured workers, relatives of the three workers who died, nearby businesses and others who said they suffered losses because of the collapse.
The Hard Rock Hotel project collapsed on Oct. 12, 2019, near Canal and Rampart streets while the building was still under construction. Three workers — Anthony Magrette, Quinnyon Wimberly and Jose Ponce Arreola — were killed. Other workers were injured, nearby property was damaged and streets and businesses around the site faced prolonged disruptions as officials dealt with the unstable structure and debris.
The settlement includes agreements involving claimants, defendants and insurers connected to the litigation. Details of individual payments and the amounts contributed by individual defendants have not been made public. Court records show that 21 master settlement agreements were filed under seal along with a confidential memorandum supporting approval of the settlement.
A court-supervised process will determine how the money is divided among those covered by the agreements. Court-appointed mediator and special master John Perry Jr. is expected to oversee distribution based on factors including the injuries, losses and damages attributed to individual claims. The approval therefore establishes the total settlement amount but does not disclose what any particular claimant will receive.
The collapse led to a wide range of lawsuits involving workers, victims’ families, businesses, government agencies and companies connected to the development and construction project. The lawsuits were eventually combined into a single proceeding. The city of New Orleans also filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the property’s developers and other parties, saying the collapse had imposed millions of dollars in costs on the city.
The disaster left officials with the difficult task of stabilizing and eventually removing the damaged building. Two construction cranes left towering over the site were brought down in a controlled implosion days after the collapse. Demolition and debris-removal work continued afterward, and recovery of two of the workers who died took months because officials said parts of the building were too dangerous to enter. The remaining structure was later demolished and the site was cleared.
The collapse also drew federal workplace-safety scrutiny. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited companies connected to the project after its investigation. Some findings and allegations about responsibility were disputed by parties involved in the construction project. Civil lawsuits continued even after a grand jury later declined to return criminal indictments connected to the collapse.
The settlement ends the central consolidated litigation without publicly assigning individual settlement values to the hundreds of claims. The confidential agreements also limit how much is publicly known about the contributions made by specific defendants and insurers. For families, injured workers and businesses involved in the litigation, the approval follows more than six years of legal proceedings over one of New Orleans’ most prominent construction disasters in recent years.
Settlement funds are now expected to move through the court-supervised allocation process overseen by the special master. Individual awards and defendant contributions remain confidential, leaving distribution of the approved $106 million as the principal remaining step in resolving the claims.
Author note: Last updated August 10, 2026.