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Owner of dive boat where 34 died seeks to head off lawsuits

Photographs of loved ones lost in the fire on the scuba boat Conception are placed at a memorial on the Santa Barbara Harbor on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, in Santa Barbara, Calif. A fire raged through the boat carrying recreational scuba divers anchored near an island off the Southern California Coast on Monday, leaving multiple people dead. (AP Photo/Christian Monterrosa )
Photographs of loved ones lost in the fire on the scuba boat Conception are placed at a memorial on the Santa Barbara Harbor on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, in Santa Barbara, Calif. A fire raged through the boat carrying recreational scuba divers anchored near an island off the Southern California Coast on Monday, leaving multiple people dead. (AP Photo/Christian Monterrosa )

By Associated Press 3 min read

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The owners of the dive boat where 34 people perished in a fire off Southern California filed a lawsuit Thursday to head off potentially costly litigation.

Truth Aquatics Inc., which owned the Conception, filed the action in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under a pre-Civil War provision of maritime law that allows it to limit its liability.

No cause for the fire has been determined.

The time-tested legal maneuver has been successfully employed by owners of the Titanic and countless other crafts – some as small as Jet Skis – and was widely anticipated by maritime law experts. Still, the speed with which it was filed just three days after the deadly inferno Monday in which all passengers on the boat and one crew member died, struck observers as being in poor taste.

“Filing this quick is quite unusual,” said Charles Naylor, who represents victims in maritime law cases. “Frankly, it just seems to disrespect their grief.”