| Most
people are probably quite unaware that they may actually have
legal obligations for what happens to their boats, or rather
what their boats do to other property, during a hurricane.
Such obligations have been demonstrated in numerous court
cases.
There
is a well-established legal doctrine that almost everything
that happens during a storm is classified as an “Act
of God.” That means that if your roof blows off onto
someone else’s house, you are not responsible for that
damage. However, negligent behavior is excluded from that
doctrine if resulting damage was preventable by taking reasonable
precautions.
The most famous
case was that of a barge owner who anchored his large barge in a
bayou and took no extra measures when a storm came up. The barge
broke loose and wrecked a large factory and the barge owner was
held liable.
There are
numerous examples of yacht owners who failed to take any, or reasonable
precautions to secure their vessels, wherein a court ruled that
they were liable for damages caused by their vessels despite the
storm. Thus, a boat owner who decides to abandon his boat to his
insurance company just to get rid of it, he risks not only a possible
denial of his insurance claim, but a law suit for any damages his
vessel may cause.
In one case
that I was involved in, a homeowner who just happened to be a retired
lawyer rented out his dock to an out-of-state boat owner. Big mistake
there, right? Well our lawyer friend called the boat owner to advise
him of the storms approach, not once but three times, getting an
answering machine each time. But he did something else, too: he
recorded his phone calls.
As expected,
the boat owner did nothing to secure the boat, and as the homeowner
was in a wheel chair, was not able to do it, though he had asked
a neighbor for help, wasn’t able to get any. Thus the homeowner
made a prudent, if failed effort. Well, that boat wrecked the swimming
pool and patio before ending up in the living room. Then the real
fun began. The boat owner filed a claim for the storm damages to
both the boat and the liability claim by the homeowner. But for
the homeowner’s allegation that the boat owner failed to secure
his boat, the insurer probably would never have known. But now they’ve
got a liability claim on their hands from a homeowner angry about
the boat owner abandoning his boat.
The insurance
company denied the hull claim based on breach of contract because
the insured failed to protect his property, leaving him without
liability coverage also. The boat owner sued the insurer and the
homeowner sued the boat owner who lost both contests. The damage
assessed to the boat owner’s negligence was $78,000.
Similarly, if a boat breaks loose and plows into a dozen other boats
for want of taking action in the face of a storm, that boat owner
may be also held liable.
A boat owner
is legally required to take “reasonable and prudent”
actions to prevent his property from damaging others. Reasonable
and prudent means such actions as any experienced boater would take,
not a half-hearted effort for appearances sake. There are thousands
of people who buy boats, park them somewhere far from home, and
then forget about them, figuring that because it is insured, they
can just forget about it and collect the insurance when it gets
wrecked. That kind of thinking can cost one dearly.
Related Reading:
Posted September
1, 2004 |
