Duck boat death suit seeks $100M
Filing on behalf of two of 17 killed in sinking
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — 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 Sunday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, seeks $100 million in damages on behalf of two of the nine members of an Indiana family who died when the tourist boat sank July 19 at Table Rock Lake near Branson. A second lawsuit was filed Monday in state court on behalf of three daughters of William and Michelle Bright, of Higginsville, Missouri, who died in the accident. The wrongful-death lawsuit seeks more than $125,000.
“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 …” the federal lawsuit, filed on behalf of the estates of 76-year-old Ervin Coleman and 2-year-old Maxwell Ly, states.
Ripley Entertainment Inc., Ride the Ducks International, Ride the Ducks of Branson, the Herschend Family Entertainment Corp. and Amphibious Vehicle Manufacturing are named in the federal suit.
The state court suit names Riley Entertainment and Ride the Ducks International, as well as boat operators Kenneth Mckee and Robert Williams.
A Ripley spokeswoman said in a statement Monday that the company remains “deeply saddened” and would not comment further because a National Transportation Safety Board investigation is underway and no conclusions have been reached.
The federal lawsuit says the boat operator violated the company’s policies by continuing with the ride despite the weather warnings and by not telling passengers to put on life jackets when the water got rough. He instead lowered plastic side curtains, “thus further entrapping passengers in the soon-to-sink vessel.”
The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the area including Table Rock Lake about 30 minutes before the tour began.