Maritime Law for Smarties #1

Today, a diversion from political and cultural things to a matter of law.

You may be wondering who is going to pay for the obviously massive damage caused by the Baltimore ship collision.

It’s obvious that rebuilding the bridge alone will cost a lot.  There are probably at least ten deaths.  There are clean-up costs.  Let’s assume that the total damage is more than $2 billion.  Who is responsible?  Obviously, the ship and shipowners. However, due to a not generally known provision of ancient Maritime Law known as “Limitation and Exoneration of Liability,” the ship’s owners are essentially allowed to limit their liability to the value of the ship plus cargo.  It’s hard to figure out the value of the ship, but let’s assume it’s $10 million:  It appears that large ships can hold as many as 15,000 containers; if we assume that each container held $10,000 of goods, that’s $150 million. 

On the high side it’s probably $200 million total for the ship and cargo.  In any event the damage is clearly going to be more than the value of the ship and cargo.   Thus, expect the owners to file a suit in Baltimore Federal District Court to essentially limit their liability and give up the ship and cargo.

For a more precise description, here is a link from a Maritime Law Firm on the subject:

https://mcleodbrock.com/exoneration-limitation-of-liability/