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asbury park, new jersey
2024 is the 112th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS (which stands for Royal Mail Ship) Titanic, one of the most infamous maritime disasters in history (even before James Cameron got a hold of it). If it’s possible you don’t know the Titanic story, RMS Titanic was a British passenger and mail carrying ocean liner on her maiden, or first, voyage, who hit an iceberg during the early hours of April 15, 1912, about 700 kilometers south-southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, and, less than three hours later, sank in waters nearly two miles deep. Of the approximately 2224 passengers and crew on board, about 1500 died, most succumbing to the frigid waters. At the time, it was the most deadly single sinking in maritime history.
She (Titanic–vessels are usually referred to as she) was on a voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States, with stops at Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland. At the time of her sinking, she was the largest ship in the world and her engines were the largest that had ever been built. RMS Titanic was an ocean liner: that is, a ship that operated on a fixed schedule between point A and point B. Ocean liners were operated at close to top speed to maintain their schedule. They were the primary mode of travel between Europe and North America from the mid-19th century until air travel came along in the 1950s.
After the sinking of Titanic, survivors and the families of the dead filed claims against the owners, the White Star Line. During the litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, despite the fact that the sinking happened in international waters, the laws of the United States should apply to claims of losses. This meant that the 1851 Limitation of Liability Act, meant to encourage shipping by protecting shipowners from claims caused by unavoidable accidents, would apply. (Other countries, including the United States, had, and still have, such statutes.)
The Limitation of Liability Act, (in very simple terms as there are textbooks written on it), limits the total amount of claims for which a shipowner is responsible, to the value of the vessel and its gear, after the accident, plus its freight and/or passenger fares, as long as the owner can prove it lacked knowledge of the problem that caused the accident. The White Star Line invoked the Limitation of Liability Act to limit their liability to the value of the RMS Titanic’s surviving lifeboats, $92,000. The claims for the sinking of RMS Titanic totaled somewhere between $16 and $22 million dollars but, according to records, in December 1915, an out of court settlement was reached for a total payout of $665,000 to all claimants. After the sinking of the Titanic, new laws mandated enough lifeboats to carry all passengers and crew (duh??). An International Ice Patrol was also established to provide reports to ships of iceberg activity.
So, how does Asbury Park, New Jersey connect to RMS Titanic? (Although one of Bruce Springsteen’s albums was entitled Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and Bruce Springsteen’s father is of Irish descent, your host hasn’t come up with any record of Bruce Springsteen’s ancestors as passengers on the Titanic!) Well, on September 8, 1934, an ill-fated ocean liner drifted ashore in Asbury Park, New Jersey, after a fire and loss of life. The SS (standing for steamship), Morro Castle, was an American ocean liner which operated between the United States and Cuba (this was before Americans were prohibited from visiting Cuba and during the time of Prohibition, when Americans could imbibe in Cuba but not in the United States). The Morro Castle and ships like her made the voyage from Cuba to New York in less than 60 hours.
On the evening of September 7, 1934, the captain of the Morro Castle died suddenly and at about 3:00 a.m., a fire broke out on the ship. A storm was also approaching with strong winds and waves. The rescue response was slow and there was empty capacity in the lifeboats that were launched. Survivors reported that the decks were too hot to stand on; there was smoke; and that passengers were forced to leap into the rough ocean. The Morro Castle was abandoned, and she eventually ran aground on the beaches of Asbury Park where she remained until the following spring. Of the 549 persons on board, 135 passengers and crew perished. The Limitation of Liability Act was again invoked by the owners of the Morro Castle (supposedly the owners tried to limit their liability to $20,000) but liability for the entire disaster was fixed at $890,000. Even this number caused outrage and the Limitation of Liability Act was amended to establish a minimum liability fund based on the vessel’s gross tonnage for personal injury or death claims, regardless of the vessel’s actual value.
The Limitation of Liability Act was again in the news in 2019. Before dawn on Labor Day 2019, a scuba dive boat named the Conception was anchored off the coast of Santa Cruz Island, California, just 100 feet from shore, when a fire broke out. Its 33 passengers were sleeping below deck after a day of diving. 34 of the 38 people on board perished. The owners of the vessel invoked the Limitation of Liability Act to try to limit their liability to the value of the vessel, which, after the fire, was $0. This action caused outrage and lead to the passage of the Small Passenger Vessel Liability Fairness Act of 2021, which excludes small passenger vessels (remember, the devil is in the details) from the protections of the Limitation of Liability Act. Large cruise ships still have the Act’s protection.
Earlier this year, on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore Maryland, a large container ship, the M/V (motor vessel) Dali, lost propulsion and collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the bridge to collapse. At the time, six construction workers were on the bridge and not all of their bodies have been recovered. So, what is the first thing that comes into your mind, all you wanna-be lawyers? Yes, the Limitation of Liability Act.
On April 1, 2024, the owner and management company of the ship filed a petition seeking to limit their liability to $43.6 million. Remember, the Act limits liability to the value of the vessel and its gear, after the accident, plus its freight and/or passenger fares, as long as the owner can prove it lacked knowledge of the problem that caused the accident. Key points to keep in mind as you follow this story: There was lots of freight on board, so the limitation pot is substantial, but not to the point that it will pay for a new bridge. There have been rumors of dirty fuel causing the loss of propulsion. Whether the owner or management company had knowledge of this or any other problems that may have contributed to the collision, prior to the accident, will be highly litigated. Some of you maritime lawyers out there may have just been assigned the case of a lifetime.