Legal considerations for the Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[Joneill]

To be fair, once the claim was rendered to the carrier the carrier hired defense counsel and will be making all of the essential decisions. Truth will have a cooperation clause requiring it to cooperate with the defense. So it isn’t a case where the owner has made this decision. It’s the insurance carrier trying to limit massive payouts.

Not saying right, wrong or otherwise and yes the suit is filed in Truth’s name. Just the realities of insurance defense

I made no judgement - just posted the news.

 

[ChrisM]

You have to wonder if with this mindset they will do nothing to reduce future risk should a similar event happen again.

Absolutely not. This is what defendants / carriers do in maritime cases. It’s what happened in the sundiver case. It’s not unique here and was expected.

 

[ChrisM]

I made no judgement - just posted the news.

I know you didn’t. Judgment is certainly out there. See the post above this one.

Just explaining the practicalities of the process

 

[Ron Lee]

Absolutely not. This is what defendants / carriers do in maritime cases. It’s what happened in the sundiver case. It’s not unique here and was expected.

I don't understand your response. Are you saying that the boat owner could evaluate what happened, come up with possible causes, take actions to mitigate those risks and people suing him could not use those mitigation efforts against him.

In other words, is making changes admitting that it was "unsafe" prior to the fire?

 

[ChrisM]

I don't understand your response. Are you saying that the boat owner could evaluate what happened, come up with possible causes, take actions to mitigate those risks and people suing him could not use those mitigation efforts against him.

In other words, is making changes admitting that it was "unsafe" prior to the fire?

Maybe I misunderstood your post. Sounded like you were saying the owner uses this as a get out of jail free card and doesn’t make changes if necessary. That may not have been your point, apologies if it wasn’t.

That said, to this post there is a rule in law that prohibits the introduction of subsequent remedial measures as proof of liability. Ie you knew that design that caused my injury was unsafe and you changed it to make it safer. This is a policy decision that encourages changes to be made without fear that’s it’s being used against them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be made

 

[kafkaland]

Agreed but that is a question of fact for later. the first salvo was the same here I believe

Court’s Order denying dan carlock’s motion to dismiss Sundiver Capt’s maritime lawsuit to limit liability (Note it’s a procedural motion not on the merits )
In re Arntz, 380 F. Supp. 2d 1156 | Casetext

I just read the thing and it looks like that motion to dismiss was premature, because Carlock hadn’t even tried to prove negligence on the part of the owner yet whenever he filed that motion. In the present case, we don’t have any serious showing of negligence on part of the owner yet, either. So this will take quite some time to sort out.

 

[BlueTrin]

You have to wonder if with this mindset they will do nothing to reduce future risk should a similar event happen again.

It’s not the mindset, it’s to protect the company: I do not know about this particular case or US law but in some places you can become liable for all legal costs if you didn’t counter claim even if the fault is shared with another party.

They will still be liable if they are in fault.

 

[Honokai]

AP reporter Brian Melley Includes an explanation from a Maritime law expert in his report:

“Professor Martin J. Davies, the maritime law director at Tulane University, said the cases always follow accidents at sea and always look bad, but they are usually initiated by insurance companies to limit losses.

"It seems like a pretty heartless thing to do, but that's what always happens. They're just protecting their position," Davies said. "It produces very unpleasant results in dramatic cases like this one. ... The optics are awful."”

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

Truth Aquatics is now claiming that their financial liability for these deaths should be zero.

California dive boat owner quickly asks judge to limit payouts to victims' families

 

[Altamira]

Truth Aquatics is now claiming that their financial liability for these deaths should be zero.

California dive boat owner quickly asks judge to limit payouts to victims' families

I would think that should be called "Adding insult to injury." Legal, but outrageous!