Tiger:
They were drinking, the evidence didn't go into whether they were drunk or not, but they were from Ireland, the expert reports were that the cause was the "greedy" contractor substituting OSB for plywood, OSB is a code compliant material, I'm sure that had the specified plywood been used the balcony wouldn't have failed that night, killing those people, but it would have eventually failed, it failed because of leaks in the flashings and/or Bituthene membrane. My point is that had the metal flashing been soldered with real lead-based solder, and/or the membrane been hot mopped it would not have happened.
I also might say that had the city inspectors inspected the flashing and membrane installation maybe it wouldn't have failed, of course inspectors don't inspect things like that, I have never had an inspector inspect solder joints or felt plies in a membrane.