Wrongful-death suit to name Florida boat rental biz
MIAMI – Parents of one of the victims of a boating accident last weekend on Miami’s Biscayne Bay that killed two and injured seven will file a wrongful-death lawsuit today blaming a boat-rental company and a powerboat operator, the Miami Herald reported in a story today.
The accident took place near the Rickenbacker Causeway, when a 35-foot Intrepid rammed a rental boat, which was experiencing mechanical difficulties and was being towed back to the marina. The two people killed were each struck in the head by the Intrepid’s propellers, according to the story.
The family’s legal action was fueled by new information that Club Nautico at the Miami Beach Marina – which rented six boats to the victims for a day on the bay, while the Columbus Day Regatta was taking place nearby – provided one or more employees, including a 16-year-old, to the group, the newspaper reported.
”These boaters paid Club Nautico extra for a skipper and they got a 16-year-old?” Stuart Z. Grossman, a prominent South Florida personal-injury attorney representing the family of one those killed, told the Herald. “To send these people out with a teenager and call him a captain is negligent. You can’t blame these passengers. They were given a lousy boat, at least, and a non-captain, which they paid for.”
The attorney for Club Nautico declined comment, the newspaper reported.
The teen’s actions later in the evening are central to the extensive investigation into the boat collision by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, according to the story.
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