Outrageous - They Sued For $100 Million

Ok, not really outrageous.  The devil is in the details.



The insurance-industry funded “citizen’s groups” are going slightly bonkers over the just-filed lawsuit from the family of someone who was killed in a recent Missouri “duck boat” accident.

I wasn’t on the water that day.  I don’t know what happened.  But the little bit of video and the history of duck boats say this was preventable.

First, let’s dispose of the silly objection to “how much they sued for.”  It’s utterly meaningless.  It might be the product of an over-active lawyer’s imagination.  Or it might be that the plaintiff HAS to put some number in the suit, and they haphazardly came up with that.

HOWEVER - If it goes to a jury, the jury will never hear about the $100 million.  They might award each family $100,000.  Maybe $1 million.  Maybe $10 million.  Beats me.  But if a lawyer stood up and said “We are suing for $100 million,” s/he would cause a mistrial and the next time the case came to trial, that lawyer would not be part of it.  

When I practiced personal injury law, my lawsuits read “The Plaintiff requests a judgment in excess of the jurisdictional threshold of this Court.”  In other words, just enough to be there and we’d let the jury decide how much.

Some people have already talked about “justice for the victims.”  Balderdash.  Pure fantasy.  The victims won’t get justice on this Earth.  They remain dead and their hope is on a higher plane.  It is peculiar that we try to say how much a life is worth.  That’s the only readily possible remedy, assuming that the operator was negligent, but it still does not bring them back.

Will the family buy a Mercedes and think, “Hey, this makes Mom’s death A-OK.”  Not likely.

Duck boats are accidents waiting to happen.  They have a terrible safety record.  The recent sinking was not the first, nor the first time 10+ people have been killed in a cutely painted duck boat.  Nor, unfortunately, is it the last. 

The duck boats were built in World War II. The term “duck boat” comes from the Army’s designation, “DUKW.”  It is a highly modify “deuce-and-a-half” (2-1/2 ton truck) which is moderately waterworthy.  Around 20,000 DUKW’s were produced.  After the war, they were sold as surplus.  You can STILL buy a DUKW.

They were never intended for civilian use.  They were used to transport troops and materials across water.  Directly across - like from ships near a beach to the beach or a river crossing.  They could not function in rough water.  They had no roof.  They were designed with one propeller that drove the DUKW at less than 5 knots.  On land, the operator sits very high - like 10 feet - and has oceans of blind spots.  So when they were converted to civilian use, they had a lousy record on land and on water.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been trying to get rid of DUKW’s for years.  They have tried banning roofs or awnings, what apparently led to lots of people being caught underwater when this duck boat sank.  They have urged operators to install cameras to limit blind spots.  They have urged more buoyancy.  A DUKW is not very buoyant.  It’s a little larger than a truck, it weighs nearly 7 tons empty, and rides low in the water at the best of times.  

Maybe a verdict will cause the insurance companies to price duck boat insurance out of reach.  Maybe operators will find another sort of boat and use a bus for land tours, all from a sense of obligation and embarrassment. 

But that’s not the way to bet.  

Mizpah!