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That OceanGate Liability Waiver Might Not Be As Airtight As It Seems

First rule of contract law: you can't get out of them. Unless.

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Business woman tearing contractBy this point you’ve already heard about the failed submarine expedition to see the wreckage of the Titanic. News cycles haven’t been this inundated with the combination of high publicity and poor judgement since Tiger King went viral. And at each turn, things just got worse.

Let’s start with the fact of the name. Titanic 2, though just as apt, would have somehow been less ham fisted than what CEO Stockton Rush decided on. Why in the hell would you name the thing OceanGate? Was he trying to make it sound like a scandal before any of the technical difficulties went down? I have the firm suspicion that he settled on it only after discovering the names “Water Gate” and “Deep Throat” were already taken. Now that we are past the naming, the other aspect of this failure receiving a lot of air time is the waiver passengers needed to sign before boarding the doohickey. As explained by none other than a writer for The Simpsons:

I guess that’s all she wrote. Sorry to the families but assumption of risk and no liability, right? Not so fast. From Reuters:

Liability waivers signed by passengers on a submersible lost at sea during a dive to the Titanic wreck may not shield the vessel’s owner from potential lawsuits by the victims’ families, legal experts said.
…
Waivers are not always ironclad, and it is not uncommon for judges to reject them if there is evidence of gross negligence or hazards that were not fully disclosed.

“If there were aspects of the design or construction of this vessel that were kept from the passengers or it was knowingly operated despite information that it was not suitable for this dive, that would absolutely go against the validity of the waiver,” said personal injury attorney and maritime law expert Matthew D. Shaffer, who is based in Texas.

I get the feeling that it wouldn’t be that difficult to find evidence of gross negligence if not downright recklessness. For example:

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The reason you don’t do that? Skimping on the metals needed to resist the pressure found at those depths can cause a lot of damage:

If only some diligent employee had warned Rush that the craft wasn’t seaworthy:

Oh. Yeah that’s definitely going to make its way into evidence. My main worry is that the dangers of the voyage were so in your face that the obviousness of it all may cut against the notion that hazards were not fully disclosed. I mean come on — would you expect someone who says something like this to pay attention to safety concerns?

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It is only a matter of time before a case is filed and even more details about what happened before launch becomes available to the public. Speaking of, the documentary on Rush’s trap airs soon. There’s no way you have a documentary already cued up without there being some major mishaps that got captured on the camera.

Titanic Sub: Victims’ Families Could Still Sue Despite Liability Waivers [Reuters]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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