A federal judge denied a petition filed by the state of Maryland and Ace American Insurance Company to sue Grace Ocean Private outside of the U.S. District Court of Maryland in an attempt to expedite the ruling.

Grace Ocean owns the ship that hit the Key Bridge last March.

U.S. District Judge James Bredar denied the petition late last week stating that other courts’ involvement in the case could lead to delay, unfairness and inefficiency.

It’s likely that Maryland and Ace were trying to sue in separate courts because both entities were already shelling out large sums of money to businesses and individuals impacted by the bridge collapse.

“They have already paid some claims to their insureds, and now they're looking to get the money back,” said Michael Karcher, a maritime law professor at the University of Miami. “Rather than wait for the federal case to go, they are thinking ‘Can we do this on our own and get a, hopefully, favorable judgment and start the collection proceedings without waiting for this limitation proceeding to go forward.’”

The first trial against Grace Ocean is set to start in June 2026, but it will still be quite some time before a judgement is handed down.

That trial will decide whether Grace Ocean will be protected under an admiralty law from the 1800s, which would cap the company’s liability at about $44 million.

Once that is decided, a second trial will go forward to decide how much the company will own the entities filing against it.

Bredar said in his ruling that it’s important to keep all of the claimants in one court because there may be differing opinions.

In total, there are 55 claimants suing Grace Ocean.

The city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, multiple businesses, owners of cargo on the ship and the families of the six people killed on the bridge are all suing the company.

The U.S. Justice Department already settled with the companies for more than $102 million for the cleanup of the incident.

The U.S. response to the Key Bridge disaster involved efforts from dozens of federal, state and local agencies.

Responders removed about 50,000 tons of steel, concrete and asphalt from the Patapsco River.

The incident closed most ship traffic to the Port of Baltimore for nearly three months.

Grace Ocean also paid nearly $100,000 to the Coast Guard National Pollution Fund Center to deal with oil pollution from the incident.