KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The owners and operators of a tourist boat that sank this month in Missouri, killing 17 people, put profits over people’s safety when they decided to put the Ride the Ducks boat on a lake despite design problems and warnings of severe weather, a lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City seeks $100 million in damages on behalf of two of nine members of an Indiana family who died when the tourist boat sank July 19 at Table Rock Lake near Branson. A second lawsuit was filed Monday in state court on behalf of three daughters of William and Michelle Bright, of Higginsville, Mo., who died in the accident. The wrongful-death lawsuit seeks more than $125,000 in damages.
Separately, the Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office confirmed Monday that it has opened a criminal investigation under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act duck boat incident.
“We are working with investigators to determine the facts and whether any criminal charges are appropriate,” said Mary Compton, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.
The statement from the attorney general’s office does not name any individuals or companies.
“This tragedy was the predictable and predicted result of decades of unacceptable, greed-driven, and willful ignorance of safety by the Duck Boat industry in the face of specific and repeated warnings that their Duck Boats are death traps for passengers and pose grave danger to the public on water and on land,” the federal lawsuit, filed on behalf of the estates of 76-year-old Ervin Coleman and 2-year-old Maxwell Ly, states.
Robert Mongeluzzi, whose law firm won a $17 million settlement when two Hungarian students drowned on a duck boat in Philadelphia in 2010, said at a news conference Monday that the Coleman family wants to know what happened when the boat sank.
“And more importantly they want to make sure that no one ever dies again inside a death trap duck boat,” Mongeluzzi said. “They’ve asked that this lawsuit leads the charge to ban duck boats so they no longer kill their passengers and the children who ride them.”
Ripley Entertainment Inc., Ride the Ducks International, Ride the Ducks of Branson, the Herschend Family Entertainment Corp., and Amphibious Vehicle Manufacturing are named in the federal suit. The state-court suit names Riley Entertainment and Ride the Ducks International, as well as boat operators Kenneth McKee and Robert Williams.
A Ripley spokeswoman said in a statement Monday that the company remains “deeply saddened” by the accident. She said the company would not comment further because a National Transportation Safety Board investigation is still underway and no conclusions have been reached.
The federal lawsuit says the boat operators violated the company’s policies by continuing with the ride despite the weather warnings and by not telling passengers to put on life jackets when the water got rough.
