By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla., Nov 4 (Reuters) – A federal choose in Florida on Wednesday set a Dec. 21 deadline for harm claims to be filed by the households of 33 sailors misplaced at sea when the freighter El Faro went down final month in a hurricane off the Bahamas.

The deadline, coming simply weeks after the ship disappeared on Oct. 1, is allowed beneath a nineteenth century maritime legislation and was invoked by ship proprietor Tote Services in a federal lawsuit final week.

Survivors and bereaved members of the family in different private harm circumstances usually have three years to carry their claims, in response to Houston lawyer Kurt Arnold, who has sued Tote on behalf of two seamen’s households.

The identical court docket deadline applies to households who wish to contest Tote’s declare that the corporate was not at fault for the catastrophe, in response to the order signed by Judge Harvey Schlesinger in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville.

Schlesinger additionally halted additional lawsuits in opposition to Tote and positioned stays on these fits which have already been filed.

If Tote is profitable in proving that it isn’t at fault for the wreck, the maritime legislation may restrict the corporate’s monetary legal responsibility to both the worth of the vessel and cargo after the catastrophe, or to a worth primarily based on the tonnage of the vessel.

Tote requested in its lawsuit for a legal responsibility cap of $15 million, which shall be deposited inside 10 days with the court docket by Steamship Mutual Underwriting Association on behalf of the corporate, in response to the order.

The firm has stated the El Faro possible was doomed when it misplaced propulsion close to the attention of the storm. The wreckage was discovered upright and intact final weekend at a depth of almost three miles (5 km).

The 790-foot (241-meter) ship, with 33 largely American crew, was on an everyday weekly run between Florida and Puerto Rico, when the captain reported dropping propulsion and taking in water.

Arnold stated Tote’s accountability for the wreck is much better than the restricted legal responsibility beneath the maritime legislation.

“We’re going to show that Tote knew the El Faro was a defective ship that they knowingly sent into the path of a hurricane. We’ll be fighting to expose the Limited Liability act of 1851 as the backward and arcane law that it is,” Arnold stated in an emailed assertion following the court docket order. (Reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Sandra Maler)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.

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