The families of three Baltimore firefighters who were killed while battling a fire in a vacant rowhome in 2022 refiled their lawsuit this week against the city, alleging it ended a safety program meant to flag unsafe buildings, withheld that information from the rank and file, and sent them into a death trap.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court and contains four counts, including state-created danger, negligence and wrongful death. The development comes less than two months after a judge threw out their case in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, ruling he was constrained to do so under the law.

Lt. Kelsey Sadler, Lt. Paul Butrim and EMT/firefighter Kenny Lacayo died after the home on South Stricker Street near West Pratt Street in Mount Clare collapsed on Jan. 24, 2022. EMT/firefighter John McMaster was permanently injured while batting the fire, and he’s also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“If their case can impact future firefighters from not having something like this occur again, that’s all they want,” said Kevin Stern, one of the attorneys for the families. “That’s their No. 1 goal.”

Loved ones also want accountability, he said.

The Baltimore City Fire Department, he said, had a culture of, “Go in, ask questions later, no excuses.” Stern said he believes they will be able to meet the legal standard that there was an intent to harm.

“This goes beyond just not telling them,” Stern said. “This is an intentional act.”

In a statement, the Baltimore City Law Department wrote, “As this is ongoing litigation, we will reserve comment for the appropriate judicial forum.”

Starting in 2010, the city promised firefighters that it created and continued to run a program called Code X-Ray that marked and tracked structurally unsafe condemned properties — but that was a “bald-faced lie,” the lawsuit alleges.

The government, the complaint asserts, also knew some of those buildings were at risk of immediate collapse.

When firefighters responded to the home on South Stricker Street, the lawsuit contends, there were no markings or placards indicating it was unsafe.

The complaint also claims the city did not include information in the computer dispatch system that there had been at least two prior issues at the house, including a fire in 2015 that caused a partial collapse and hurt three firefighters.

Moments after firefighters entered the home, the inside pancaked and collapsed.

Firefighters, the lawsuit alleges, were repeatedly assured that they would not be sent into structurally unsafe condemned buildings. If first responders knew the city had lied about ending Code X-Ray, they would have quit, the complaint asserts.

Another one of the attorneys for the families, Ken Berman, said there’s a belief in many fire departments that no one should lose their lives over property damage.

Not only was the building on South Stricker Street abandoned, Berman said, but firefighters were hurt a few years ago at the same property. He said that “shocks our conscience.”

“Firefighters are aware when they sign up that it’s a dangerous job. That’s part of it,” Berman said. “When they do that, however, they expect their employer — the city — and their supervisors to minimize that risk that is inherent in the job.”

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

As part of the lawsuit, McMaster submitted an affidavit and wrote that the city did not disclose to either him or the other firefighters that the home had previously collapsed. The city, he said, repeatedly reassured firefighters that under Code X-Ray it would mark unsafe buildings and catalog them in the computer dispatch system as a backup.

McMaster said he and his colleagues would not have otherwise entered the building.

“Had I known that the City misrepresented the existence, implementation, enforcement and continuation of the Code X-Ray program,” he said, “I would have resigned as a Baltimore City firefighter.”