Liability Issue

[dlochner]

Negligence and responsibility are two different things. The mooring didn't hit you, he did. The boat is responsible. If he chooses to recover damages from the mooring owner, that's on him.

Can you file a lean against the boat?

Somewhere in this long thread, it was stated that the mooring was owned by the boat owner and the boat owner had a permit to place the mooring.

The questions that are unanswered are:

Did the the mooring comply with the Harbormaster's regulations?
Are the Harbormaster regulations adequate?
Was the inspection adequate and competently done?
Was the mooring suitable for the size of the boat?
Was the mooring adequately maintained?
Did the mooring drag during an exceptionally unusual weather event?

If the answers to the first 5 questions is "yes" then it will be difficult to hold the mooring owner responsible. If the answer to the last question is yes, then the mooring owner may not be responsible or at least his liability may be limited.

Unfortunately, finding the answers to these questions that are defensible in Court may cost more than the repairs. The real lesson here, is to have hull insurance, to do otherwise is to be penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[Will Gilmore]

My in-laws died and left their house to 4 sons and a daughter, my wife. Once the house was emptied of everything and going up on the market for sale, my wife, the executor of the will and trustee to her father's trust, went to the insurance company to tell them the house was empty. Her hope was to get a lower premium. However, they raised the premium and switched carriers. When asked why it wasn't cheaper to insure an empty house the agent told us that since the house was empty there would be no one there in case the pipes froze and burst or something. We could understand the logic so we reluctantly paid the higher premium and moved on.
Christmas Eve, my brother-in-law called my wife to tell her the house was flooded, the fuel line clogged to the furnace and the pipes had actually burst.
When we took our claim back to the insurance company they denied us. The new policy did not cover frozen nor burst pipes. We had not actually read the new policy because we had asked for the same coverage as before and assumed we had gotten it.
Along with the agent's specific use of the burst pipe example we felt we had a claim. The trust's lawyer did too. however, The claim was not against the insurance company but against the agency. It was their misleading practices that had resulted in inadequate coverage. We had our lawyer send them a letter to which they responded that there was no coverage for an empty house that included burst pipes and water damage. Their insurance denied our claim also. As it turns out, they were right. You can't get such insurance in New Hampshire. Our lawyer still thought the agency acted negligently by leading us to believe we had the same coverage as before and that included burst pipes.
Obviously the agent who we dealt with just didn't know any better at the time. It was a bad assumption on their part and poor practice on ours not to read the policy we were sold. The 4 brothers and my wife decided they did not want to get embroiled in a court battle and all the time and anxiety that would require. As a group they all, unanimously, decided to take the $80,000 hit and sell the house as-is at the lower price, full disclosure.
As you can guess, the moral is, even believing you've got coverage, you may still not have coverage. It is important to pay attention and read the contracts you sign, mooring leases, insurance policies, even municipal regulatory codes.
I think $4500 is hard to take but it could be a lot worse.
- Will (Dragonfly, uninsured, for the moment)

 

[Maine Sail]

I'm surprised at the 1/2 inch bottom chain requirement in Falmouth. Down this way bottom chains are usually 1 inch or 3/4 inch at a minimum. Also is there a requirement on chain length and pendant size and length? Down here the bottom chain is required to be 1x depth of the water and the top chain is usually also 1x. Then the pendants are required to be a certain diameter and a length of 1.5x the water depth. The weight/design of the mooring itself is only one part of the design of the mooring.

Keep in mind that 1/2" chain is the absolute bare minimum size chain that can be used in the mooring field even for a 10' dinghy mooring or a 13' Boston Whaler. Even my little Maritime Skiff work boat uses 3/4" bottom chain & 5/8" top... I also mentioned that Falmouth has many holes and issues and the regs are not perfect yet but still better than 98% of the regs I've studied and read.

Some of the major issues;

#1 Chain Size - Both bottom and top chain are not specified for minimums as related to mooring and boat size. By the letter of the law a mooring installer could use 1/2" chain for a 50' boat and still be "in compliance". I don't know any that do.

This is the bottom chain for our "non-storm" mooring in Falmouth for a 36' boat.....

#2 Scope - There are minimum scope requirements but the town ordinacne does not list them. It needs to be listed.

#3 Inspection & Re-chains - In Falmouth moorings are allowed to be "un-set" for inspections and re-chaining. This is about as dumb as it gets and can be very dangerous with "settable" moorings.. It can take a setting mooring, like a mushroom, six months to over a year to become properly set in Falmouth. Every time you un-set the mooring the risk of a dragging increases massively. In the last storm, Hurricane force winds just last week, one boat brought all its gear in with it despite the mushroom being over-sized to the town ordinance. Why? It was re-chained in August and had not yet had a chance to re-set. My brothers mooring is 4' below the surface of the bottom and did not budge an inch. He uses a diver tore-chain and inspect. In this case a granite block, pyramid or screw would have been a far better performer due to the un-setting to re-chain the owners over-sized mushroom.. Like my brother I pay the mooring guy to dive on it for inspection to the tune of about $300.00 more than a typical inspection or re-chain.

#4 Dual pendants are not specified or required. The vast majoprity of boats that break free in Falmouth, over 95% at my last count, have only one mooring pendant.

#5 No mooring diagram is shown.

#6 Chafe gear is not required even during storms.

#7 The removal of anchors from bows during storms is not required though an email does go out before each storm.

#8 Type and quality of shackles, swivels & chain are not specified to meet any sort of industry testing. Even a bottom of the barrel Chinese cast shackle is allowed.


These are just some of the changes that would make Falmouth safer...

We are fortunate enough to have a storm mooring in front of our house, on top of our Falmouth moorings around the point. The storm mooring is in a fairly protected cove with only three or four other small skiffs all spread out.. Our granite block is approx 14" thick, 8' long and 6' wide. It weighs approx 9500 pounds. It is long, low and flat and has settled over 18" into the bottom so that only the 2" staple is showing. To change the massive USCG/USN bottom chain, once every 20 years or so, requires diving. Two years ago we tried to inspect the bottom of the staple but after two hours the largest mooring barge in the bay could not get it out of the mud. Even with an incoming tide as force the barge was just standing on end...

For bottom chain we use 30' of USCG/US Navy surplus stud-link bottom chain. Each link is 10" long and it weighs approx 27 pounds per foot. For top chain we use 1" Acco long-link mooring chain & then onto a 1.5" Campbell eye to eye swivel. From there we have two Yale Polydyne 1" pendants, of unequal lengths, which are then connected to two 1" Dyneema storm pendants and one 1" Polydyne storm pendant. For chafe gear I use Chafe Pro... The cleats on our boat are backed by massive 1/2" thick G-10 backing plates.

Our regular mooring, around the point in Falmouth Foreside, is still pretty robust, especially for our boats size. It is likely more robust than perhaps 98% of the moorings in the US, but you could not pay me to keep our boat on it during a real storm.

This article may be of interest to some:

Mooring Preparation & Precaution For Storms (LINK)

 

[dlochner]

A few years ago, Wayne Hamilton from Hamilton Marine made this video about moorings. It's a good overview.
Welcome, Friends of Hamilton Marine

While you're there take a look at some of the videos from OffCenterHarbor.com. If you like classic and wood boats, this is a great site.

 

[CarlN]

You’re making this much too complicated. This is a very straightforward case. The damage was done by a boat hitting yours. Unless you were responsible for the collision (say, your mooring was illegally placed in the channel), it doesn’t matter what caused the boat to hit yours. The owner of the boat has liability to you. If there was a problem with the other boat’s mooring, the mooring owner may have a liability to him but not to you. You need to contact the owner directly with an estimate of the cost. If he won’t pay, have a lawyer write him a letter demanding the money by a certain date or you will sue for the damage plus legal costs (the letter will only cost $100 or so). If he doesn’t pay, have your lawyer sue him. If course, this may make things uncomfortable at the club. If that’s more imoortant to you than the money, then drop it and chaulk it up to “S*$t happens”.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

You’re making this much too complicated. This is a very straightforward case. The damage was done by a boat hitting yours. Unless you were responsible for the collision (say, your mooring was illegally placed in the channel), it doesn’t matter what caused the boat to hit yours.

I guess that you fall in with the camp that says "Somebody is always liable for anything that goes wrong". Apparently, the insurance companies don't operate that way when they conclude that their client took all reasonable and expected actions to prevent the event from happening. Of course, maybe they are just shirking as well. But, I guess you haven' t paid any attention to the advise that the burden of proof makes taking your adversary to court expensive. I'm sure threatening letters get tossed in the circular file every day. (I know I've tossed a few.)

 

[jssailem]

I've tossed a few.

That is letters your talking about?

 

[Meriachee]

This is the bottom chain for our "non-storm" mooring in Falmouth for a 36' boat.....

Ah, @Maine Sail , are you moving up in the world? That looks like the outer ends of a suit.

 

[dlochner]

Ah, @Maine Sail , are you moving up in the world? That looks like the outer ends of a suit.

Nah, that's just the outer ends of the obligatory blue blazer that all Maine yachties must wear.

 

[dlochner]

Now that we have devolved into critiquing the clothing selection by one of our esteemed members.....

There are 2 take away messages in this thread:

1. Liability is not always what it seems to be at first glance; this stuff gets complicated and sometimes convoluted;

2. Going without hull insurance, i.e., going with liability insurance only, leaves the boat owner on his/her own in the sometimes murky waters of who's responsible for damage to their boats. This seems to come up periodically, remember that kid in SC last year who lost his boat in a hurricane, it ended up on a marshy island and he couldn't afford to retrieve it and had no insurance.

I've heard, but have not verified that the way insurance companies deal with claims and counter claims in situations like this is to meet periodically and settle up in what might be called a claims party. Company A tells Company B they have X dollars in claims against Company B, and Company B tells Company A they have Y claims against them. Then they settle all the claims at once by paying the difference to the other company. Insurance companies can afford to do this to by aggregating smaller claims and not really worrying who is at fault as it all comes out in the wash. It is not cost effective for individuals to litigate these smaller claims.

To paraphrase Sgt Esterhaus in Hill Street Blues, "Let's be smart out there."

 

[Meriachee]

Now that we have devolved into critiquing the clothing selection by one of our esteemed members.....

Nah, the thread hasn't completely devolved. Although we've come close, nobody has mentioned the beer by name.

 

[dlochner]

Nah, the thread hasn't completely devolved. Although we've come close, nobody has mentioned the beer by name.

If you're referencing the "tossed a few comments" it must be Rheingold, NJ's favorite beer.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Oh gawd am I embarrassed. I thought, we are all sailors! And I toss my cookies every time I go sailing. Is that not a thing with the rest of you?
- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[dlochner]

Uhhhh, I only toss cookies when they get moldy or if someone leaves them in the cockpit and they get wet.

 

[NotCook]

It sounds like you contacted the offending boat owners insurance company and got the brush off. That is what they do.

Interestingly, my insurance company (BoatUS at the time) paid multiple claims by other boaters, I assume just to make it go away. The claimants filed directly with my insurance, and they settled over my objections. The claimants asserted that red paint sprayed on my boat got onto their boats and required a repaint of their boats. There never was paint sprayed on my boat. I suspect it was paint sprayed by another boat owner repainting his trim. The only red paint on our boat is the ablative bottom paint, which I would expect to wash off. My insurance should’ve told the claimants to get lost. I’m surprised the OP’s insurance doesn’t pay the $4500 just to settle the deal.

 

[jssailem]

Brian. Sometimes you wonder what is right and wrong. Insurance companies do what they think is good for their bottom line based on their experiences not the experiences of the insureds. It seems a bit unusual that they would volunteer funds when the insured provides information that would absolve the company from responsibility. There are a lot of strange events in this boating world. " Just when you think it got it figured out.. Your wrong.."

 

[Randy Rohrbeck]

So if the wind blows a tree, that was healthy and growing on my property, onto my neighbors house my insurance won't be responsible? That would be an act of god right?

 

[jssailem]

Depends... Did you dig a deep hole around the tree? Did you try out your new chain saw on the trunk? Have you hung heavy weights on the tree near your neighbor? Did you cut all the branches off on your side of the tree?

 

[Rick486]

So if the wind blows a tree, that was healthy and growing on my property, onto my neighbors house my insurance won't be responsible? That would be an act of god right?

I am very interested in this issue because there are many large trees in our neighborhood. My insurance company has assured me that with tree damage losses the bill is paid by the insurance company of the home owner suffering the loss, regardless of where the tree originally stood. Obviously I suspect that were there foul play involved, there may be other considerations.

 

[rfrye1]

I am very interested in this issue because there are many large trees in our neighborhood. My insurance company has assured me that with tree damage losses the bill is paid by the insurance company of the home owner suffering the loss, regardless of where the tree originally stood. Obviously I suspect that were there foul play involved, there may be other considerations.

Correct. Cause of loss is "wind" which is Act of God, which you cannot be liable (unless you as JSSAILEM says fail to maintain your trees or "help them" blow down). BUT if your neighbor notifies you that they are concerned about your trees falling on their house and should be trimmed, then you could very well be liable after that.
Then after your healthy tree falls on his house as #77 asks, and the your neighbor sues for damages, your insurance will prob pay to defend you against their suit while still denying the tree damage. Another really good reason to have a Personal Liability Umbrella..... (BTW, I'm in the business....
Bob F.