Featured Image Credit: OceanGate
Topics: Titanic
Anish Vij
The families of the passengers who died on board the Titanic submersible could still sue OceanGate, despite waivers being signed before the doomed journey.
On Friday, 16 June, the group of five men embarked on an OceanGate submersible expedition to visit the ruins of the Titanic and set off from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
But just two hours into the journey, the submersible lost contact and never returned to the surface.
After days of search, on Thursday, 22 June, officials confirmed that the missing sub had suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’.
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CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have all been confirmed to have died.
However, a commercial litigation lawyer and partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron has said that OceanGate could still be sued by the families of passengers, despite them having already signed waivers.
"The enforceability of those types of liability waivers will be tested by the families of these deceased people," William Mack told Business Insider.
He predicts that their lawyers will 'make whatever arguments they can that this liability waiver will not apply if there's gross negligence'.
"If they determine the deaths were as a result of some sort of negligence outside the liability waiver then we could see litigation filed pretty quickly," Mack explained.
On Saturday, 24 June Superintendent Kent Osmond, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), said investigators are establishing whether a criminal investigation is warranted.
Confirming preliminary inquiries were being made, Supt Osmond told reporters: “Today, the RCMP initiated an examination of the circumstances that led to the deaths of the five individuals on board the submersible.
“A team of investigators has been established with the sole purpose of answering the question of whether or not a full investigation by the RCMP is warranted.
“Such an investigation will proceed only if our examination of the circumstances indicate criminal, federal or provincial laws may possibly have been broken.
“Following the US Coast Guard’s announcement earlier this week that debris from the submersible was located and all five on board were presumed dead, we will now look at the circumstances that led to those deaths.
“Our investigators are engaged and active in this matter as of this morning.
“Once a determination has been made as to whether or not a full investigation will be launched, we will provide an update at that time.”
Asked whether the force had any suspicion of criminal activity, Supt Osmond replied: “There is no suspicion of criminal activity per se, but the RCMP is taking initial steps to assess whether or not we will go down that road.”