http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575241852606380696.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
God forbid that those 11 people's family should be compensated for their death without a fight.
Greed kills but it also maims.
By MARK LONG And ANGEL GONZALEZ
Transocean Ltd., the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that burned and sank last month unleashing a massive oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, Thursday filed in federal court a petition to limit its liability to just under $27 million.
..The world's biggest offshore driller filed the request in the U.S. District Court in Houston under a century-and-a-half-old law that allowed the Titanic's owners to limit their liability following that ship's 1912 sinking. While Transocean may not succeed in limiting its financial liability, the filing could give the company an edge in what could be a lengthy, multipronged legal battle against claims for damages from the accident that killed 11 workers.
Under the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, a vessel owner is liable only for the post-accident value of the vessel and cargo, so long as the owner can show he or she had no knowledge of negligence in the accident, maritime lawyers say.
The law was created in the days before modern insurance and communications technology, to help U.S. shipping businesses compete against foreign ship owners who were protected against claims. Drilling rigs count as vessels under U.S. maritime law, and since "the remains of the … Deepwater Horizon now lay sunken" about a mile deep in the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the value of the rig and its cargo comes to no more than $26,764,083, Transocean claims in the filing. Before the accident, the rig was worth around $650 million.
