Suit seeks $100 million in duck boat sinking
Families accuse owners of running ‘death traps’
INDIANAPOLIS – Relatives of two of the nine Indianapolis family members killed when a duck boat sank in a Missouri lake filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages.
“Duck Boats are death traps for passengers and pose grave danger to the public on water and on land,” the estates of Irvin Coleman, 76, and Maxwell Coleman-Ly, 2, said in a suit filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The lawsuit blames the tragedy July 19 on “decades of unacceptable, greed-driven and willful ignorance of safety by the Duck Boat industry.”
The families seek $100 million in the lawsuit against the owners of Ride the Ducks Branson. The Coleman family victims were among 17 people killed when the tour boat sank in Branson, Missouri.
Suzanne Smagala, spokeswoman for Ride the Ducks Branson’s parent company, Ripley Entertainment, said the owners are saddened by the accident and support the victims and their families.
“The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board is still underway,” Smagala said in an email. “No conclusions have been reached, and we cannot comment at this time.”
The families urged authorities to ban duck boats, lawyer Bob Mongeluzzi said Monday in a news conference in Kansas City, Missouri.
“With this lawsuit, we hope we will drive the death trap duck boats out of business,” Mongeluzzi said.
In the suit, attorneys point to 26 deaths linked to six previous duck boat tragedies, including the sinking of the Miss Majestic Duck Boat in 1999 in Arkansas.
Owners and manufacturers have refused to heed warnings that the canopies on duck boats can trap victims under water, lawyers said.
According to the suit, the NTSB warned that duck boat canopies pose an “unacceptable risk” to passenger safety after the Miss Majestic sunk, leading to 13 deaths. Mongeluzzi said boat operators repeatedly failed to heed the recommendations to remove the canopies.
“Duck boats are sinking coffins,” Mongeluzzi said. “Once they take on water, they sink, and they sink fast.”
The owners of the Branson duck boat company had specifically been warned, according to the lawsuit, that engines and bilge pumps “might fail in bad weather due to the improper placement of the boats’ exhaust system.”
Despite these warnings, lawyers for the victims said, the boat operators “repeatedly chose to value profits over the safety of their passengers.”
The lawsuit says Robert McDowell, president of Ride the Ducks Branson, said following safety recommendations would be expensive.
The lawsuit calls out McDowell, saying he designed duck boats, including the one that sank July 19, but completed only two years of college and had no background in mechanics.
“Robert McDowell’s design was based entirely upon conversations with a high school football coach who previously co-owned the Ride the Ducks business,” the lawsuit says.
Ripley Entertainment acquired Ride the Ducks International in December, the suit says, and operates a fleet of nearly 100 boats, carrying more than 1 million guests a year.
Bob Mongeluzzi Lawyer
“Duck boats are sinking coffins. Once they take on water, they sink, and they sink fast.”