Adjunct Professor Lawrence Brennan was quoted in a New Haven Register article about the recent boating accident in Missouri, where a duck boat capsized killing 17 people on board.
Lawrence Brennan, a professor of maritime law at Fordham University, told Business Insider that it all comes down to a hotly contested 1851 law called limitation of liability.
If the ship owner can prove that the ship was entirely seaworthy and they had no reason or way of knowing that such incredible winds would come through, they may successfully petition for limitation of liability, according to Brennan. This would limit their exposure to only the surviving portion of the boat.
In this case, if limitation of liability is granted, the survivors and victims can only legally claim what’s left of the shipwreck, likely a only a few planks of wood or fiberglass.
Brennan said that the owners of the Titanic went to the Supreme Court to cap their liability and won, meaning victims of the Titanic sinking literally only could have won a few planks of a lifeboat if they took the case to court. Luckily, the Titanic was making a trans-Atlantic passage, and victims got compensation from London, Brennan said.
“But, if the victims can break limitation of liability, if they can prove the ship is not seaworthy or they didn’t do their due diligence,” then they could recieve astronomically higher compensations, said Brennan. Additionally, breaking of limitation of liability happens in most cases, said Brennan.
“I’ll be conservative and say tens of millions of dollars,” Brennan said of the potential damages. “We don’t know the economic loses. We assume some of them are children, and those damages are a little hard to predict. I’m not going to be surprised if it’s many tens of millions of dollars.”
Brennan said that video of the ship’s fate will likely play a huge role in the proceedings.
“We saw the video, and we know what was happening,” said Brennan. “Imagine being on the inside, being petrified, being a parent or child and knowing that this could be the last moment of your life and your family’s life. All likely have psychological injury.”