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Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

mdd.uscourts.gov

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Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#71

Post by Timshel »

buster3000 wrote: post #20
eastbound wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not. I was irresponsible to let ships pass a dozen times a day through a flimsy contraption that could collapse at the first nudge. This risk was unacceptable. Unacceptable! The people of Baltimore have benefited for years of a port facility literally downtown, which is practically the same thing as building houses in a flood zone. Should have never been permitted! I hope “We The People” accepts the responsibi…

the use of "flimsy contraption" and "first nudge" indicates your level of ignorance of the subject. https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/kinetic-energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali#Description "Description Dali is a Neopanamax container ship[7] with an overall length of 299.92 metres (984 ft), beam of 48.2 metres (158 ft 2 in), moulded depth of 24.8 metres (81 ft 4 in), and summer draft of 15.03 metres (49…

I agree that:

> "flimsy contraption" and "first nudge"

Is crap just wanted to note that bridge protection do exist, Ex: https://www.drba.net/drba-proceeds-new-bridge-ship-collision...

So it could be argued that part of the responsibility is on the port authority that did not correctly ensure the safeguard of the bridge.

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#73

Post by keepamovin »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #61
gnfargbl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree: we allow people to be in command of thousands of kilos of metal, moving at up to around 30m/s, with really quite minimal training.

(For anyone who is reading this, I think the parent is referencing driving cars)

I thought they meant ships

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#74

Post by MichaelZuo »

keepamovin wrote: post #42
idbehold wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now consider all the people driving around in their cars everyday.

Right, but I think it would be quite the engineering challenge — or, ‘evil genius side quest’, whatever you wanna call it disturbingly — to cause $600 million worth of damage with a sedan car. Tho, YMMV, that’s just me.

If a broke drunk driver knocks a packed school bus off a cliff, that could easily be 600 million dollars worth of medical bills, if all the kids survive but become permanently disabled. And nearly all of it would have to be covered in the end by the taxpayer.

No ‘side quest’ needed, just a few seconds worth of bad decision making.

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#75

Post by saalweachter »

rich_sasha wrote: post #55
shiroiushi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Tokyo, there's a relatively new bridge that's almost exactly the same length as the Key bridge in Baltimore, and was expressly designed to allow large ships to pass underneath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Gate_Bridge By my calculations (using the yen cost in the wikipedia article and the JPY/USD conversion at the time), it cost about USD $1.1B, so a bit less than double this estimate. However, with th…

It probably needs to be earthquake-proof too, which maybe it doesn't in Baltimore.

I suspect the winning bridge design in Baltimore is going to include massive starlings, beyond what is normal, or some other mitigation factor for the last disaster.

So maybe earthquake-proofing is a fair comparison, cost-wise.

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#76

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

altacc wrote: post #2

I have wondered what the insurance structure for this is and how liable the vessel's owners and insurers are for damage to public infrastructure. Marine insurance is one of the oldest types of insurance and antique in some respects, with large vessels covered by several underwriting firms. So potentially this is a massive financial hit for multiple companies if there is not a limit on liability.

This isn't an insurance lawsuit. Interestingly, it's also not exclusively a ship owner petition. The petition also includes the ship manager.

Another poster linked to a USC section protecting the ship owner on the basis of them not knowing anything that caused the loss. So that is what it is.

Ok, but why would a ship manager also be able to benefit from such a limitation ? The USC section doesn't say anything about the manager, and unlike the owner, the manager was by definition an active participant in the casualty.

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#77

Post by Timshel »

michaelt wrote: post #36
swores wrote: post #22

TLDR of the logic behind that sum for anyone else who wondered like I did: They claim the ship's value before the crash as $90M, and that estimated costs for salvage and repairs to the ship are $19.5M and $28M respectively, leaving the value of the ship now at $42.5M (points 15-17 in the main document). They then add the value of pending freight ($1.17M): "Petitioners offer an Interim Stipulation of Value in the amou…

> IANAL nor in the US, so I'm curious whether this is standard law to be able to limit your liability to the (post-crash) value of the ship 46 USC 30523: General limit of liability [1] "In General.-Except as provided in section 30524 of this title, the liability of the owner of a vessel for any claim, debt, or liability described in subsection (b) shall not exceed the value of the vessel and pending freight. [...] li…

I was wondering how isolated the ownership was and the NYT reports that Grace Ocean Pte Ltd own 55 ships (according to Equasis).

So not as much as I expected.

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#78

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

undecisive wrote: post #57
buster3000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the use of "flimsy contraption" and "first nudge" indicates your level of ignorance of the subject. https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/kinetic-energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali#Description "Description Dali is a Neopanamax container ship[7] with an overall length of 299.92 metres (984 ft), beam of 48.2 metres (158 ft 2 in), moulded depth of 24.8 metres (81 ft 4 in), and summer draft of 15.03 metres (49…

As is often the case, the truth is far more complicated. Firstly, the bridge - while up to code - did not have the kinds of buffers that could have been installed, or arguably should have been installed [1] It isn't wrong to say that if you are going to authorise large container ships, if you are going to profit from large container ships as a harbour, and you are not going to invest properly in the infrastructure, y…

> It also isn't wrong to say that if you are operating a large container ship, you should ensure it has failsafes in case of power failure. I don't know what failsafes exist (emergency anchors? Some kind of manual rudder?) that would be effective on a ship that large.

All large vessels require emergency generators. The requirement is usually startup within 45s but better performance is generally expected.

Here is an in-depth look on how steering systems on such vessels work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JElUSyNIJGo

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#79

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

michaelt wrote: post #36
swores wrote: post #22

TLDR of the logic behind that sum for anyone else who wondered like I did: They claim the ship's value before the crash as $90M, and that estimated costs for salvage and repairs to the ship are $19.5M and $28M respectively, leaving the value of the ship now at $42.5M (points 15-17 in the main document). They then add the value of pending freight ($1.17M): "Petitioners offer an Interim Stipulation of Value in the amou…

> IANAL nor in the US, so I'm curious whether this is standard law to be able to limit your liability to the (post-crash) value of the ship 46 USC 30523: General limit of liability [1] "In General.-Except as provided in section 30524 of this title, the liability of the owner of a vessel for any claim, debt, or liability described in subsection (b) shall not exceed the value of the vessel and pending freight. [...] li…

It happened in a port so it's a very solvable cost-sharing problem: if you have an unprotected bridge, don't let big ships near it without posting a special bond or making a special commitment to protect the bridge above this liability.

Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M

#80

Post by bArray »

rkrzr wrote: post #21
edgineer wrote: post #13

Rebuild cost: $600m [0] I do hope We the People have zealous advocates. [0] https://news.sky.com/story/baltimore-trade-implications-from...

I suspect that the actual cost to rebuild the bridge will be far higher than that. Initial estimates of large public works projects are virtually always too low, and actual costs can easily be 5-10 times higher. There is a great book about this phenomenon (and how to avoid it) by Brent Flyvbjerg called "How Big Things Get Done".

Almost definitely billions and almost definitely multiple years. Planning, testing and clean-up alone could be over a year. It's far too early to even put a number on it.

Even if we assume $600m is the correct number, the expenditure is evenly distributed, and it takes 6 years to be fully up and running. Based on 3% inflation alone:

Year 1: $100m, Year 2: $103m, Year 3: $109m, Year 4: $112m, Year 5: $116m, Year 6: $119m = $666m

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