Maritime Disasters Shed Light on Legal Future of Bridge Collapse
(Bloomberg) -- Years of legal battles are in store for the owner of the ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore this week, to judge by past disasters.
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Insurance claims involving the bridge’s reconstruction, along with any wrongful death and business interruption claims, could reach as much as $3 billion, Barclays Plc analysts said Wednesday, a day after the collision sent the bridge sprawling into the water and left six workers presumed dead.
No lawsuits have been filed against Grace Ocean, the owner of the Singaporean-flagged container ship, the Dali, and the company has yet to petition to limit its liability and corral cases under a single court — a common move that follows maritime disasters and invokes a US law from before the Civil War.
But the record suggests a rash of litigation to come. The results have varied widely, with one major disaster, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010, resulting in several multibillion-dollar settlements.
Here’s the legal fallout from some of the largest US maritime disasters in recent history.
Summit Venture, 1980
Accident: The bulk carrier Summit Venture slammed into a support pier of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida, sending about 1,300 feet (396 meters) of the span’s deck and superstructure into the water and killing 35 people.
Litigation: More than $100 million in claims were filed against the owners of the vessel.
Outcome: Individual claims settled for amounts ranging from $30,000 to more than $1.2 million. A federal judge ordered the ship’s owners to pay the state of Florida $19 million in compensation, finding that they weren’t entitled to a limitation of liability.
Exxon Valdez, 1989
Accident: A supertanker owned by Exxon ran aground and spilled 11 million gallons (41.6 million liters) of oil into the ocean off the Gulf of Alaska, fouling more than 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) of the shoreline and killing hundreds of thousands of sea animals.
Litigation: Exxon was sued for economic damages by more than 30,000 people, including commercial fisherman, property owners and Native Alaskans, in a class action lawsuit that played out over almost two decades. The state of Alaska and the federal government also brought civil claims and criminal charges against the company. US prosecutors filed charges against the ship’s captain, Joseph Hazelwood.
Outcome: In 1990 Hazelwood was acquitted of the most serious charge of being intoxicated while helming the ship, but was convicted of misdemeanor negligence. Exxon settled with Alaska and the US government in 1991, agreeing to pay $900 million to settle civil claims, $100 million in criminal restitution and $25 million in a criminal plea agreement. In the class action, the company ultimately paid $507.5 million in punitive damages after a jury’s $5 billion verdict was reduced on appeal to $2.5 billion and then cut again by the US Supreme Court in 2008.
Deepwater Horizon, 2010
Accident: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and released 3.19 million barrels of crude over 87 days, the largest marine oil spill in US history.
Litigation: The US Justice Department brought civil claims and criminal charges against Transocean Ltd., the rig’s owner, and BP Plc, its operator. Hundreds of lawsuits were brought against BP, its partners and contractors by residents and businesses in several Gulf states.
Outcome: In 2012 BP reached a $7.8 billion settlement with a group representing victims of the spill. Later that year the company agreed to plead guilty to 14 criminal charges and pay penalties and fines of more than $4.5 billion. In 2014 BP agreed to pay $20.8 billion to resolve civil claims under the Clean Water Act with the US, five states and local governments. Transocean pleaded guilty to an environmental crime in 2013 and was hit with $1.4 billion in civil and criminal fines and penalties.
Conception, 2019
Accident: A commercial scuba diving boat, the Conception, caught fire and sank off the coast of southern California, killing 34 people.
Litigation: The boat’s owner, Truth Aquatics, filed a lawsuit three days after the sinking to head off liability, citing a 19th-century law that legal experts anticipate the Dali’s owner will tap in the Baltimore bridge collapse. Families of the victims sued Truth Aquatics about four months later, seeking unspecified damages. They later sued the US Coast Guard, claiming it didn’t properly enforce safety regulations prior to the fatal voyage. US prosecutors filed criminal charges against Captain Jerry Boylan.
Outcome: The lawsuits are ongoing. Boylan was found guilty in November of misconduct of a ship’s officer, known as seaman’s manslaughter, over allegations that he abandoned his ship instead of rescuing passengers. His sentencing is scheduled for May 2.
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