Lawsuit over duck boat sinking that killed 17 seeks US$100 million
The lawsuit said the operators violated the company’s own policies by putting the boat into the water despite weather warnings
The owners and operators of a tourist boat that sank this month in Missouri, killing 17 people, put profits over people’s safety when they decided to put the Ride the Ducks boat on a lake despite design problems and warnings of severe weather, a lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, filed on Sunday in US District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, seeks US$100 million in damages on behalf of two of nine members of an Indiana family who died when the tourist boat sank on July 19 at Table Rock Lake near Branson. Others killed were from Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri.
“This tragedy was the predictable and predicted result of decades of unacceptable, greed-driven and willful ignorance of safety by the Duck Boat industry in the face of specific and repeated warnings that their Duck Boats are death traps for passengers and pose grave danger to the public on water and on land,” the lawsuit alleges.
Ripley Entertainment, Ride the Ducks International, Ride the Ducks of Branson, the Herschend Family Entertainment Corp and Amphibious Vehicle Manufacturing are named in the lawsuit, which was filed by a team led by a Philadelphia-based legal firm that has litigated previous lawsuits involving duck boats.
A Ripley spokeswoman said in a statement on Monday that the company remains “deeply saddened” by the accident and supportive of the affected families.