Settlement reached in Fla. boat accident that killed S. Tahoe woman
By Paul Pinkham, Florida Times-Union
Lawyers for five victims of a fatal Easter Sunday boat crash in Palm Valley two years ago have settled their lawsuit against the boat manufacturer.
Terms of the settlement, reached last week in mediation, are confidential, and lawyers for the plaintiffs and Crownline Boats declined comment.
Three injured people and two representatives of deceased victims sued the boatmaker in federal court shortly after the 2009 crash, claiming the design of the Crownline 225BR was inherently unsafe.
The 22-foot pleasure boat struck a tugboat moored in the Intracoastal Waterway just north of the Palm Valley bridge, killing five people and injuring nine.
Another apparent outrages non-public settlement (using the court system to extort money from plantiffs and then sealing the settlement) as incompetent drunks have fun in a boat, crash, killing and injuring people.
Blame the boat and not the the fun loving, drunk partygoers. Our legal system at its worst.
Wow. I read the article and I can’t believe the boat manufacturer settled! 14 people (apparently 13 of them inebriated) on a boat rated to carry a maximum of 12 and they still payed out in this case? No wonder everything we buy costs so much. Anybody who produces anything has to be prepared to pay off the lawyers eventually for somebody who will surely be too stupid to use the product.
The people who brought this suit should be ashamed.
Read the comments in the Florida Times-Union !!!