The operator of the superyacht that sank during a violent storm off the coast of Italy this week is likely to face legal troubles over the deadly tragedy, according to maritime law experts.
But the success of any potential lawsuit is up for debate.
Three maritime legal experts told Business Insider that the operator and owner behind the now-sunken luxury sailing yacht called the Bayesian should lawyer up in anticipation of possible claims from families of the dead or the survivors themselves.
“There’s always the possibility of claims when there’s a casualty,” said Martin Davies, the director of the Maritime Law Center at Tulane University School of Law in Louisiana. But based on what is currently known about the incident, Davies said it is “unlikely that any claims would succeed.”
Michael Sturley, an expert in maritime law and professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law, agreed. “Based on what we know now, I would not be optimistic about the chances for any claims,” he said.
However, Sturley noted, “There is still a lot that we don’t know.”
Bad weather does not automatically absolve a party of liability, but it would be challenging to make a wrongful death or personal injury claim as negligence would need to be established, according to the experts.
“Under English law, they’d have to prove fault and I don’t think there’s much prospect of anyone proving fault,” said Davies.
“Bad weather at sea is not at all unexpected, which is why you can’t just simply say bad weather and hope to get off the hook,” Davies said. “What seems different about this case is that it came suddenly.”
Still, said Oregon-based maritime lawyer Gordon Carey, “It doesn’t spell defeat” for a potential legal claim “just because it’s a weather event.”
The yacht was carrying 22, including UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch and a Morgan Stanley exec
The British-registered 184-foot yacht was anchored about a half-mile off the Italian port of Porticello near Palermo, Sicily, and carrying 22 people, including UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch, when a fierce storm hit and quickly sank the vessel just after 4 a.m. on Monday, according to reports.
The body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, was found on Monday. Six other passengers — Lynch; his 18-year-old daughter Hannah; Lynch’s friend and Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer; Bloomer’s wife, Judy; Lynch’s attorney Christopher Morvillo and Morvillo’s wife Neda — went missing during the disaster.
Divers on Wednesday found the bodies of five of the missing inside the sunken yacht that was around 164 feet below the surface.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among the 15 people who were rescued in the aftermath of the tragedy. Reports said Lynch had been on the boat celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges in the US.
According to the Associated Press, documents show Bacares as the sole owner of Revtom Ltd., the Isle of Man-registered company that the online international maritime database Equasis lists as the owner of the Bayesian.
The Bayesian was being managed by the global yachting company Camper & Nicholsons. In a statement posted to its website, the company said it can “confirm that the vessel encountered severe weather conditions and subsequently sank near Palermo, Italy.”
There were a total of 10 crew members and 12 guests on board, it said.
“Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew,” the company said.
It was not immediately clear who the captain and crew of the vessel were employed by. Camper & Nicholsons declined to comment beyond the statement posted online.
The maritime legal experts BI spoke to said that the operator of the Bayesian could potentially face liability claims, depending on the circumstances, if it hired the captain and crew and managed the vessel.
Davies said a boat like the Bayesian is bound to have “all kinds of insurance.”
“And so someone may make a claim in the hope of getting some money from the insurance,” he said.
English law would likely apply if any claims were made
According to Davies, it is more likely that English law would apply should the family of any of the victims or a survivor try to take legal action since the yacht was a UK-flagged vessel. US law could be applied if jurisdiction could be established, said Davies and others.
Under US law, crew members, not passengers, could potentially make an “unseaworthiness” claim, according to the maritime experts.
“The advantage of unseaworthiness is it’s a strict liability claim,” said Sturley. “You don’t have to prove negligence. For other losses, you’d have to prove negligence.”
To make an unseaworthiness claim, Davies explained, “you’d have to argue that there’s something about the vessel that makes it unfit to withstand a sudden storm like this.”
However, he said, “I find it hard to see there was any unseaworthiness of the vessel here.”
Also under US law, the families of the dead could potentially make a legal claim under the Death on the High Seas Act, the experts said.
“People are supposed to take precautions against weather, but you take precautions that are reasonable under the circumstances, and sometimes you have a freak weather event that nobody could see coming, and it would not have been reasonable to have guarded against that,” Sturley said.
He added, “Nobody prepares for hurricanes in the Sahara Desert. And if a hurricane happens to hit the Sahara Desert, that doesn’t mean that people who didn’t guard against it were negligent.”
The AP reported that Italian civil protection officials believe that a tornado-like waterspout hit where the yacht was anchored, likely causing it to capsize.
“If it was a water spout, which it appears to be, it’s what I would class as like a ‘black swan’ event,” Matthew Schanck, chair of the UK-based Maritime Search and Rescue Council told the AP.
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