By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff
Testimony stopped in order to hold a settlement discussion on the second day of the civil trial related to the double fatality on a duck-boat tour two years ago.
The company that owned the duck boat and the company that owned the tug boat pushing the barge that crushed it in the Delaware River both argue that the Limitation of Liability Act, passed by Congress in 1851, caps their total liability at $1.7 million.
According to that act, the owners of vessels are not liable for any loss over the value of the ship. Ride the Ducks International, the Missouri-based company that owned the duck boat, claims that its boat is worth $150,000, according to court papers. K-Sea Transportation, which owned the tug boat pushing the barge, valued its boat at $1.65 million, according to court papers.
After hearing testimony on Monday and the first half of Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas O’Neill Jr. of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania suggested that the parties discuss a settlement because it is a bench trial with no jury to inconvenience with the wait, according to Robert Mongeluzzi of Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky in Philadelphia.
Mongeluzzi is representing the families of the Hungarian students who were killed in the 2010 accident. John Snyder of Rawle & Henderson in Philadelphia is representing Ride the Ducks and Thomas Canevari of Freehill Hogan & Mahar in New York is representing K-Sea Transportation.
U.S. District Judge John Padova is presiding over the settlement discussion.
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