Titanic law could help ship owner limit liability in Baltimore bridge collapse

Straits Times ^ | MAR 27, 2024

[nickcarraway]

The owner of the Singapore-flagged ship that rammed into a Baltimore bridge could face hundreds of millions of dollars in damage claims after the accident sent vehicles plunging into the water and threw the eastern US transportation network into chaos.

But legal experts said there is a path for reducing liability under an obscure 19th-century law once invoked by the owner of the Titanic to limit its payout for the 1912 sinking.

At the centre of the legal fallout will be Singapore-based Grace Ocean, owner of the container ship Dali that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26 at the start of a voyage chartered by the shipping giant Maersk.

[rottndog]

The litigation on this is going to take years.

[rottndog]

BTW...I would think the port authority, or whoever is in charge of bridge maintenance, might have some liability here too. The bridge was more than a half century old, and wasn’t built for the size of these modern container ships. It is easily foreseeable that such an accident would eventually happen, and those bridge supports should have been significantly upgraded and modernized to minimize the risk of such an event.

[wardaddy]

She has insurance plus she ran Nippon Classification which is a top five or top three depending who you ask classifications society for ships

In other words her upkeep was kept up for that annual for sure

[period end of story]

Some things just come down to bad luck.

Every day, bad luck situations are just waiting to happen.

Good luck out there today.

[Lockbox]

So as Buttigieg would claim, bridge too short so racist…..

[roving]

With the video speeded up, it doesn’t look like an accident.

[mewzilla]

More here....

Reinsurers, marine market to bear brunt of Baltimore bridge collapse

[FreedomPoster]

I have a little bit of knowledge of how Lloyd’s works. My comment is that there are some Names sweating bullets right now.

I’m going to work on seeing if they rang the Lutine bell yesterday. I suspect they did.

https://londonist.com/london/history/lutine-bell

[mewzilla]

I don’t know why they’re worried.

The POTATUS has already reassured anyone responsible that American taxpayers will pay for it.

In dementia veritas.

[FreedomPoster]

I like that someone is asking the question Should we rebuild?

The Cheap Mercedes and the Beautiful Bridge
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4227114/posts

Not that I expect we will have an honest debate on this.

[Samurai_Jack]

All bridges should be inspected to ensure that they’re protected in case they’re found at risk for this contingency. The Bridge supports were fine, the mitigation would be to have installed concrete ‘dolphins’. That would have protected the bridge supports from the impact.

[ronnie raygun]

diaper boy couldn’t jump quickly enough to say that the American tax payer will pay the bill in full

[riverrunner]

When you slow it way down it does.

Altering a video does all kinds of things,

[ByteMercenary]

I am OK with the FedGov fronting the reconstruction of the bridge ASAP. This will get the ball rolling on the cleanup and rebuild. Waiting for money from the litigation involving all parties is going to take years. The bridge needs replacement immediately.

But the FedGov funds must be a loan, not a gift from the USA taxpayers. A loan that will be repaid from the proceeds of the aforementioned litigation. The loan must also stipulate that FedGov is the first in line for repayment. Lawyers and others get their money after FedGov is paid off with interest.

[mewzilla]

Best option: Start the clean-up. Start the paperwork. Wait for Trump.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Damages claims are likely to fall on the ship owner and not the agency that operates the bridge, since stationary objects are not typically at fault if a moving vessel hits them, said Professor Michael Sturley, a maritime law expert at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law

LOL. I’m no maritime law expert, but that does seem to have a certain appealing logic to it.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I’m curious how a complete power failure would cause the rudder to stay in a neutral position. Why and how did the ship veer to starboard after the power failure? It must take a lot of hydraulic power to move the rudder hard over to make the ship turn like that. Is there no independent or redundant rudder control system in case of total power blackout?

[Recompennation]

With the video speeded up, it doesn’t look like an accident.

No accident is right the ship was turned into and accelerated, all that smoke from a dead boat ?

[Clutch Martin]

Time for a tunnel. After the HRBT expansion is completed that contractor could load out and head to Baltimore. The timeline be about right.

Commuters in Baltimore will retire after this or physically move to a more advantageous neighborhood.

My prediction is that just cleaning out the old bridge structure from the harbor will take at least 2 years. When that process is started is the big question.

What a mess!