CAN I SUE A BOAT CLUB DUE TO THE NEGLIGENCE OF THEIR OPERATOR?
Boat clubs are big business in Florida and it is no surprise this is the case. Florida is called the boating capital of the world and its 1,000,000[1] registered recreational boats is testament to the popularity of boating here. For those who do not want to pay for owning a vessel, storing it, or maintaining a vessel, a boat club makes sense. The problem with boat clubs however is that many of their members have little boating experience—or no boating experience—but are given control over a vessel that can travel 50 mph or more after very little training. Furthermore, the State of Florida does not require anything of a person born before 1988 as far as boating experience or boating classes in order to climb behind the wheel of a boat club vessel and take it out into the general boating public. Another dynamic that we the attorneys at www.888BoatLaw.com see here is that some members treat the boat club vessels the same way certain people might treat a rental car: imprudently and not carefully.
So what happens when a boat club member takes out a boat club vessel and then causes injuries to passengers on the boat club vessel or on another vessel? To know the answer to this question one has to know which law applies. In Florida, maritime law is going to apply in 95% of boating accident cases. This is because Florida is largely surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic[2] and has multiple rivers which lead out into those larger bodies of water. All of those cases will involve maritime law, not Florida law, including for boating incidents which occur on Lake George in central Florida, Lake Okeechobee, the intracoastal regions around Florida, and on Florida rivers which end up opening into The Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic. The second question to know when a boat club vessel or operator causes injury to you is: Does your attorney really handle these types of cases or are they just there to muddle their way through? If the attorney you are considering does not handle boating accident cases every day—as we do—then you need to run. Remember, your case is about 95% likely to be handled under maritime law and most car accident attorneys do not know that law.
When the boat club’s member causes an injury to you, if your attorney knows what they are doing—you can bring a claim against both the operator and against the boat club. But your attorney has to know the “why” and the “how” maritime law applies. Otherwise, you are talking to the wrong attorney. Not only does your attorney need to know the correct laws that apply, your attorney needs to be able to demonstrate to the boat club that the attorney knows what they are doing. Car accident attorneys are unlikely to know the “why” or the ‘how” maritime law applies to your boat club injury case because the laws for each of these types of accidents is different.
You can trust our more than 25 years of experience at www.888BoatLaw.com. We practice boating accident law every day. If you have been injured as a result of a boat club boating accident call us today.
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[1] FWC announces benchmark of 1 million registered vessels in Florida | FWC
[2] 8,436 total miles of coastline, 3,341 miles for the Atlantic Ocean coastline, and 5,095 miles for the Gulf of Mexico coastline.
https://coast.noaa.gov/data/docs/states/shorelines.pdf.
