Personal Injury Law

Hurt with a Boat Propeller? Should Have Read the Warning on the Box.

By mbrickley

You hear about borderline ridiculous lawsuits all the time - then you hear about people winning them (like the woman who sued McDonald’s because their hot coffee burned her), and you wonder if you’ve ever missed an opportunity for a personal injury lawsuit?

According to the Naples Daily News in Naples, Fla., a woman who was severely injured in a boating accident by a boat propeller that was protected by a propeller-guard.

Audrey Decker, now 64, was involved in a boating accident more than 10 years ago in which she lost an eye, a breast and sustained several other upper body and facial injuries. She sued OMC, the company who manufactured the propeller-guard, claiming that they put a defective product on the market.

Seems logical, since the propeller-guard sounds like protection from the propeller, right? Well as it turns out, the propeller-guard was actually protection for the propeller - so it wouldn’t break on rocks when the boat was in shallow water.

Unfortunately for Decker, there was a warning printed on the OMC box for the propeller-guard stating that the product was designed to protect the propeller from breaking, not to safely protect swimmers or boat passengers from the propeller.

The jury sided with the defendent, leaving Decker to deal with her damages on her own. Decker had five personal injury attorneys representing her in this case, and upon exiting the courtroom, one of them assured the Naples Daily News reporter that there would be an appeal on the case.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on June 24, 2009 (boomark / email).