A judge recently threw out a lawsuit that the families of three Baltimore firefighters killed in 2022 while battling a fire in a vacant rowhome brought against the city, but they plan on refiling the case.

In a 19-page opinion issued on Dec. 9, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Maddox wrote that while the allegations in the complaint were “tragic and alarming,” he was constrained to dismiss the case.

Maddox said he did not find the accusations as drafted supported a reasonable inference that the Fire Department acted with the purpose of harming the firefighters. That’s needed to put forward a possible legal argument there was a state-created danger that violated their constitutional rights.

One of the attorneys for the families, Daniel Miller, said they plan on refiling the lawsuit.

“We continue to learn more facts every day about the case, and what went on beforehand,” Miller said. ”It gets more egregious the more facts come to light.”

The families of Lt. Kelsey Sadler, Lt. Paul Butrim and EMT/firefighter Kenny Lacayo filed the lawsuit on May 1 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore along with EMT/firefighter John McMaster. He was seriously hurt in the deadly fire, which happened on Jan. 24, 2022, on South Stricker Street near West Pratt Street in Mount Clare.

“This was no accident,” the lawsuit alleged. “The City essentially guaranteed this outcome through its pattern of arbitrary and egregious conduct that preceded this tragedy by more than a decade.”

The lawsuit claimed that the city condemned the rowhome in 2015 after determining it was “so severely compromised and at risk of collapse.” Three firefighters were hurt, the lawsuit asserted, when the second floor collapsed and trapped them while they battled a fire.

The rowhome, the lawsuit alleged, caught fire again in 2016.

Baltimore implemented a program in 2010 called Code X-Ray to comply with federal and industry regulations and make sure that firefighters would never be sent into a structurally unsafe condemned building. The city painted these properties with a red X or marked them with a reflective placard, the lawsuit claimed.

Firefighters, the lawsuit asserted, were also promised the city would maintain a database of these buildings and sync it to the computer-aided dispatch system.

Not long after, Baltimore either ended the program or limited it to a few select neighborhoods, the lawsuit alleged. But for more than 10 years, the lawsuit claimed, the city lied and sent unsuspecting firefighters into structurally unsafe condemned buildings.

Neighbors repeatedly complained about the building, the lawsuit asserted, but the city took no action.

The city had asked the judge to throw out the lawsuit.

“The Complaint does not — and cannot — plausibly allege that the City intended the deaths of its valued employees,” Chief Solicitor Thomas Webb wrote in a motion to dismiss.

In 2022, Fire Chief Niles Ford resigned alongside the release of a more-than-300-page report that faulted the department for failing to follow recommendations after previous close-calls and deaths in the line of duty.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined that the fire was ignited due to criminal activity.