Family of Glória Funicular Victim Lodges €1.05 Million Damages Action at Lisbon's Tribunal Administrativo — Husband and Daughter Name Carris, Mntc Manutenção and Fidelidade Insurance

The husband and daughter of Ana Paula Mendes, one of the sixteen people killed in the 3 September 2024 derailment of the Elevador da Glória (Glória Funicular), have lodged a €1.05 million civil-damages action at Lisbon's Tribunal Administrativo de Círculo (Lisbon Administrative Circuit Court) this week, the family's legal team confirmed on Wednesday. The defendants named are Carris (the Lisbon municipal transport operator), Mntc — Serviços Técnicos de Engenharia (the maintenance contractor) and the Fidelidade insurance group.

Who the plaintiffs are

Ana Paula Mendes was 49 at the time of her death. She worked in the adoption-processing team at Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon), a function she had previously led. Her husband Isaque Adam and the couple's daughter are the named plaintiffs. The legal team built the €1.05 million claim around five heads of damage under article 496 of the Código Civil (Civil Code): loss of life, suffering endured before death, moral damages to the husband, moral damages to the daughter, and the loss of future earnings stream that Ana Paula's Santa Casa salary would have generated through retirement age.

The defendants and the maintenance trail

The action attributes operational responsibility to Carris as concessionaire of the elevador and engineering responsibility to Mntc as the contractor maintaining the haulage cable that failed catastrophically on 3 September 2024, sending the descending car into the parked uphill car at the lower terminus on Calçada da Glória. Fidelidade is named as Carris's civil-liability insurer and is therefore expected to bear most or all of any settlement reached in court. Carris told Portuguese media on Wednesday that it had "not yet been notified" of the lawsuit and reserved further comment for the substantive defence. Mntc has not publicly responded.

Parallel criminal track

The civil suit runs alongside the criminal investigation already opened by the Ministério Público (Public Prosecutor's Office) into manslaughter charges. That investigation, handled by the Departamento de Investigação e Ação Penal de Lisboa (Lisbon Criminal Investigation Department), has been advancing slowly. A separate technical inquiry by the Gabinete de Prevenção e Investigação de Acidentes (Accident Prevention and Investigation Office) issued a preliminary report identifying haulage-cable failure as the probable cause and flagging systemic gaps in the inspection regime. The administrative court is now likely to wait for technical findings to be finalised before the substantive hearings.

Aggregate exposure could exceed €3 million

The Ana Paula filing is the first publicly disclosed civil claim but is unlikely to be the last. Twenty-one further fatalities and serious-injury survivors remain in line for compensation, and trial lawyers tracking the case estimate aggregate exposure for Carris, Mntc and Fidelidade could ultimately exceed €3 million once moral and patrimonial damages are settled across all sixteen deaths and roughly two dozen injuries. Carris has so far covered funeral expenses for the deceased but, on the family lawyer's reading, has not opened structured settlement talks. The Lisbon administrative-court calendar typically schedules civil-damages actions against municipal entities for first-instance hearings within twelve to eighteen months of filing — meaning a substantive ruling is unlikely before late 2027.

The funicular context

The 3 September 2024 derailment of the 140-year-old funicular, classified as a Monumento Nacional (National Monument) and one of Lisbon's most photographed tourist attractions, killed sixteen and injured more than twenty when the descending cabin slammed into the uphill cabin. Carris suspended operation of the Glória, Bica and Lavra funiculars pending a full safety re-certification and has not yet reopened the line. The 3 June 2026 strike day adds another twenty-four hours to the closure — the line will not move passengers again before mid-summer at the earliest.