Indiana woman fighting 1851 law after losing 9 family members in duck boat incident.

Tia Coleman is calling the defense of Branson Duck Vehicles and Ripley Entertainment “callous and calculated” following a duck boat accident on July 19, 2018. Nine of Coleman’s family members and eight others were killed when the amphibious boat capsized during a storm. Ten days later, Coleman and her attorneys filed a $100 million wrongful death suit against the two companies, but the defendants have cited an 1851 law known as the Shipowners’ Limitation of Liability Act.

According to the law, a shipowner may limit damage claims following an accident to the value of the vessel and any pending freight so long as he can prove that he lacked knowledge of the vessel’s problem beforehand. Because the duck boat in question was a total loss with no value following the accident and there was no pending freight, Ripley and Branson’s attorneys are claiming zero liability. Needless to say, the 167-year-old law was originally written for a different purpose. At the time, maritime insurance did not exist. Thus, in creating the law, Congress hoped to encourage vessel purchases and maritime transport by guaranteeing protection for sea-vessel owners in case of an accident.

Following a Coast Guard investigation of the accident, probable cause of negligence was found on the part of the boat’s captain, though the defense contests this finding. On the basis of the finding, Coleman and her attorneys filed an additional federal lawsuit in September against the boat’s operator and manufacturer. “This tragedy was the predictable and predicated result of decades of unacceptable, greed-driven and will ignorance of safety by the boat industry,” the suit states. If such an argument holds and the accident is proven to have been the “predictable” result of “willful ignorance”, it is possible that the Shipowners’ Limitation of Liability Act will be deemed inapplicable in this particular case.

Ride the Ducks, the boat-tour company run by Ripley Entertainment and Branson Duck Vehicles, has suspended all operations since the time of the accident.

Lawyers at Broussard, David & Moroux have the maritime litigation experience to understand how to best argue against a vessel owner’s claims of limitation. Oftentimes, Broussard, David & Moroux has been able to prove that the Limitation of Liability was not applicable because unseaworthy vessels have been operated in a willful, wanton and reckless manner or, in the alternative, the conduct and actions which led to the injuries and/or wrongful death took place with the privity and knowledge of the owners, managing owners, owners pro have vice, agents, employees, representatives and/or operators of the vessels involved.