The city of Baltimore is pushing back against attempts by the company that owns the Dali to limit its liability in paying for damages associated with the ship’s collision into the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month, stating the vessels actions were grossly negligent and possibly criminal.

The city filed in the U.S. District Court of Maryland to throw out Grace Ocean Private’s bid for limited liability in the incident.

“This is the beginning of the legal conversation,” said Thomas Kline, a partner at Kline & Specter. “There are certain stringent requirements that need to be met by the company.”

Grace Ocean and the ship manager Synergy Marine Group filed to limit its responsibility at the beginning of April. The company is asking the court to cap its liability at $43.7 million.

The Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 allows ship owners to reduce their exposure under certain circumstances.

Sean Pribyl, a partner at Holland and Knight, said the city must now show the vessel was unseaworthy or that neglect was taking place in order to show that liability limitation should not be granted.

In its filing, Baltimore is making the case that Grace Ocean provided the ship with an incompetent crew, unseaworthy equipment and failed to maintain the vessel in a reasonable manner.

The city says it is due payment for the replacement of the bridge, the costs of the obstruction to the river, costs for the loss of tax revenue, funds for the cleanup and money for the nuisance suffered by the residents of Baltimore.

“The Port of Baltimore was no stranger to large freighters like the Dali,” the lawyers representing Baltimore wrote in the filing. “For more than four decades, cargo ships made thousands of trips every year under the Key Bridge without incident. There was nothing about March 26, 2024 that should have changed that. But Petitioners, Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd saw fit to put a clearly unseaworthy vessel into the water.”

On April 15, Baltimore announced it was hiring trial firm DiCello Levitt and Philadelphia law firm Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Trial Lawyers to “launch legal action to hold the wrongdoers responsible and to mitigate the immediate and long-term harm caused to Baltimore City residents.”

The families of two of the six people who died in the bridge collapse are currently suing the company.

The incident is under multiple investigations. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard are looking into how the incident happened. The FBI also raided the vessel last Monday, likely opening its own criminal investigation.