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The sight of a deadly construction collapse inside the future headquarters of Marathon Oil Corporation Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, in Houston.

A worker walks past debris from the deadly construction collapse inside the future headquarters of Marathon Oil Corporation Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, in Houston.

A small bouquet of flowers in the fence at the sight of a deadly construction collapse inside the future headquarters of Marathon Oil Corporation Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, in Houston.

The families of two men killed in a staircase collapse at the future Marathon Oil headquarters have sued the petroleum company and several subcontractors involved in the construction, claiming that negligence in training, safety protocols and oversight led to the deaths.

“The key here is the type of work performed and how they did it,” civil litigation attorney Michael Gomez said. “It was very dangerous.”

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 8, publicly identifies Jose Alexander Santos Granados, 29, and Dholman Obdulio Gomez Castellano, 36, as two out of three victims in the incident. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has yet to identify Castellano, Gomez said.

The family of the third victim, 64-year-old Candelario Mexicano Solares, recently hired Houston firm Kherkher Garcia LLP to represent them, according to partner Jesus Garcia, but a suit has not yet been filed.

“We just want justice for this man,” he said. “We do believe based on what we know that Marathon and the other defendants named in the original lawsuit are grossly negligent and caused the death of these three individuals.”

Marathon Oil officials declined to comment on the active litigation.

Granados and Castellano were near the fourth and fifth floors of the tower after 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 5, when suddenly and without warning” the stairway crumpled from the 13th and 14th floors down, according to the lawsuit.

“A cascade of falling material loudly announced the oncoming mortal danger, but there was no time or space to escape,” the suit reads.

The precast concrete stairs folded one after the other, trapping the men beneath a pile of rubble inside the 15-story tower at 990 Town and Country Boulevard, to be the site of Marathon Oil Company’s new headquarters just south of Interstate 10 inside Beltway 8 near the CityCentre office, entertainment and residential complex.

Crews recovered the bodies from under the concrete two days later after first securing the site .

The official cause of the collapse has not been disclosed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was on site to investigate the incident.

The families are asking a jury to award them damages over $1 million, suing for wrongful death of both men and claiming that Marathon Oil Company and several subcontractors were negligent in the construction, including by failing to comply with safety regulations and practices, properly supervise and train employees and provide adequate safety equipment at the site.

The subcontractors are: Gulf Shore Erectors, responsible for setting, installing and repairing the staircases; East Texas Precast, which makes the concrete for the staircase; and Morrow Equipment Company as well as Consolidated Crane and Rigging, which provided cranes for the construction. Gulf Shore Erectors and Morrow Equipment also declined to comment on the litigation.

Granados and Castellano both worked for Gulf Shore Erectors at the time of the incident, their families’ attorneys said.

In an Oct. 13 response to the lawsuit, Consolidated Crane officials said they were working on a different, offsite structure at the time of the collapse. Damages were caused by acts of other parties, they said.

“Consolidated’s work location was too remote to have in any way caused or contributed to the alleged incident,” they wrote.

The plaintiff’s attorneys have obtained a temporary restraining order against the companies, meaning they can’t alter the site and must allow the plaintiffs to inspect the site themselves.

Nancy Sarnoff contributed to this report.

Samantha Ketterer is a Houston Chronicle reporter covering state courts and criminal justice.

She joined the staff as a breaking news reporter in 2018 following a gig writing about tourism and Galveston City Hall for The Galveston County Daily News.

Samantha graduated from the University of Texas at Austin's School of Journalism and is a proud alumna of The Daily Texan. She was also a reporting fellow for the Dallas Morning News' state bureau.