Family of 7-year-old boy killed while boating on Georgia lake is awarded $200 million
A Georgia jury awarded $200 million to the family of a 7-year-old boy killed in a 2014 boating accident on Lake Burton, according to attorneys representing the family.
Ryan Batchelder was killed after the Malibu Response LX open bow ski boat he was in began taking on water and he fell into the lake. The boat’s driver, unaware that Ryan was in the water, put the boat in reverse and Ryan then “became entangled in the boat’s unguarded propeller” and sustained extensive blood loss and drowned, according to the news release from the attorneys.
The boat was going about 5-7 mph and was carrying four children that weighed “below the maximum rated capacity,” according to the news release.
Batchelder’s family, of Lake Worth, Florida, had filed a civil lawsuit against Malibu Boats West, Inc. and Malibu Boats, LLC in 2016.
The family had been at a family reunion in Rabun County, Georgia when the accident occurred.
Malibu said it sympathizes with the Batchelder family for their loss of Ryan Batchelder and what the family has been through,” a spokesperson told McClatchy News.
The Malibu boat involved in the incident “operated many hours with multiple owners and drivers without incident,” the spokeperson said. “Further, this boat model has over 30,000 years cumulatively in the field without another incident like this.”
Malibu’s attorney Bobby Shannon contends that the boat’s operator caused the accident, the Journal-Constitution reported.
The jury, however, found Malibu 25% responsible for Batchelder’s death after not providing any warnings on its “freeboard design being susceptible to bow swamping if weight was being carried in the bow seat,”and found the boat operator 75% responsible for Batchelder’s death, the news release said.
The jury awarded $80 million for the Batchelder family’s pain and suffering and wrongful death, the news release said. The $80 million includes $60 million applied to the boat’s driver, but since he was not a defendant in the case, that amount cannot be collected, Drew Ashby, a Marietta-based attorney for the Batchelder family, told the newspaper.
An additional $120 million in punitive damages from Malibu was awarded to the family, according to News4.
Malibu intends to file post-trial motions and an appeal “in the event our post-trial motions are unsuccessful,” the spokesperson said.
“The facts in this case are clear,” the Malibu spokesperson said. “The boat was not unsafe, which was reinforced by the jury’s rejection of the plaintiff’s design defect claims, and reflects the extensive evidence produced to show this boat was safely designed.”
The three-week trial and verdict came after several attempts to settle with Batchelder’s insurance company, but they never offered more than $2 million, according to the news release.
This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 5:04 PM.
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