Rachel Slade

“From the point of view of admiralty law, this was a smart position for Morrell to take. The Limitation of Liability Act, passed in 1851, caps a shipowner’s liability to the value of the ship, if the accident is not caused by the vessel owner’s neglect or malfeasance. In other words, as long as a shipping company doesn’t interfere with its captain’s decisions while he or she is at sea, explains admiralty and maritime lawyer Chris Hug, vessel owners can limit their liability when the causes of the accident occurred without their “privity or knowledge.” Shipping was a risky business throughout the nineteenth century; Congress believed that its role was to shelter owners from lawsuits and egregious payouts. Now much of American admiralty law focuses on who is responsible for what, and much of it favors the shipowners. One could say that before the age of satellite communication, the Limitation of Liability Act made a certain amount of sense. When a vessel was out of sight of land, its owners had no means of contacting it. At that point, how could they prevent their officers from making fatal decisions? Holding a shipping company accountable didn’t seem fair. But these days, the law seems profoundly anachronistic. It could even encourage deliberate negligence.”
― Rachel Slade, Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro