A new bill in Congress would alter an 1851 shipping law to force the owners of the Dali to pay up.
U.S. Reps. John Garamendi, a California Democrat, and Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, introduced the Justice for Victims of Foreign Vessel Accidents Act on Tuesday.
The bill would retroactively increase the liability rate for damages by foreign vessels starting March 25, the day before the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, according to a news release from Garamendi’s office. The full text of the bill was not yet available Wednesday evening.
In the days after the bridge collapsed, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., the Singapore-based owner of the cargo vessel, invoked the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, a maritime law that allows shipping companies to seek to limit their liability to the value of the vessel’s remains after a casualty, asking the federal court in Maryland to limit the damages it pays to $43 million, based on a $90 million valuation of the vessel. The law was passed to protect the nascent U.S. shipping industry from claims for such incidents as piracy or storms, which owners could not control by vessel owners’ liability to the value of the ship and its freight bill.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Dillon Mullan over at The Baltimore Sun
