Has a boat manufacturer ever stood trial on manslaughter in Nth America?
- Thread starter Ken13531
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I am sure that some boat builders have been sued over time
Whenever there are fatalities involved it is likely to be followed up with a law suit. I do not think it is very often that the manufacturers are held liable unless some gross negligence was observed in the building process. Usually the law suits are aimed at the operators (read owner/operators) hence the airline business is not a very safe investment. The boat builders in the US have a set of rules regarding best practices to follow (ABYC) and if they followed these it is unlikely they will be decided to be the major contributor to the accident. It is usually the operator/captain who is deemed responsible for their own boat and passengers safety. People sue auto manufacturers pretty frequently when their vehicles unexpectedly burst into flames due to some manufacturing fault. That is why the automotive industry does voluntary recalls of some model vehicles. I have never heard of boat mfr's doing this but it is possible they might if they thought that some manufacturing default would cause them to be found guilty of (gross) negligence if someone dies. There are usually contributing factors to accidents like this and the weather was one of them in this case in Australia. Another contributing factor (and a big one) was that they apparently found that the keel had been cut off and reattached during manufacture. In this case the mfr holds a big liability for not following the best practices during the construction of their product. For more (US & Int'l) sea lawyer stuff go here: http://www.cargolaw.com/
Whenever there are fatalities involved it is likely to be followed up with a law suit. I do not think it is very often that the manufacturers are held liable unless some gross negligence was observed in the building process. Usually the law suits are aimed at the operators (read owner/operators) hence the airline business is not a very safe investment. The boat builders in the US have a set of rules regarding best practices to follow (ABYC) and if they followed these it is unlikely they will be decided to be the major contributor to the accident. It is usually the operator/captain who is deemed responsible for their own boat and passengers safety. People sue auto manufacturers pretty frequently when their vehicles unexpectedly burst into flames due to some manufacturing fault. That is why the automotive industry does voluntary recalls of some model vehicles. I have never heard of boat mfr's doing this but it is possible they might if they thought that some manufacturing default would cause them to be found guilty of (gross) negligence if someone dies. There are usually contributing factors to accidents like this and the weather was one of them in this case in Australia. Another contributing factor (and a big one) was that they apparently found that the keel had been cut off and reattached during manufacture. In this case the mfr holds a big liability for not following the best practices during the construction of their product. For more (US & Int'l) sea lawyer stuff go here: http://www.cargolaw.com/
A matter of time
People do things they think is right and there are unintended consequences . A few years back the gun manufacturers were sued for making guns that criminals use and the “people” were tying to make the manufacturers liable for the crime. Well that just opens the door for every manufacturer to be sued for any stupid person who miss used their product, gun ,rake, or keel manufacturer. The anti gun people thought it was great. What happens when their bicycle makers goes out of business when someone gets hurt and they get sued. People have to think. Negligence, knowingly putting out a defective product yes there needs to accountability. Accidents, miss use, normal wear, it happens.
People do things they think is right and there are unintended consequences . A few years back the gun manufacturers were sued for making guns that criminals use and the “people” were tying to make the manufacturers liable for the crime. Well that just opens the door for every manufacturer to be sued for any stupid person who miss used their product, gun ,rake, or keel manufacturer. The anti gun people thought it was great. What happens when their bicycle makers goes out of business when someone gets hurt and they get sued. People have to think. Negligence, knowingly putting out a defective product yes there needs to accountability. Accidents, miss use, normal wear, it happens.
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