President Joe Biden recently signed legislation which holds owners of boats responsible for damages caused to their passengers. 

The Small Passenger Vessel Liability Fairness Act was authored by Rep. Salud Carbajal as a response to the 2019 Conception dive boat fire which killed 34 people.

The act will update an 1851 law which stipulates that the owner of a vessel destroyed by fire cannot be held financially liable for damages incurred.

“Basing current maritime liability rules on a law written in 1851 is ridiculous,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who proposed the bill alongside Carbajal, in a statement. “Owners of small passenger vessels who are found to be legally responsible for damages should be required to make those payments, and that’s what our bill does.”

While previously, a ship owner could proactively file under the Limitation of Liability act to keep from paying more in damages than the value of the ship said damages occurred upon, the new law requires ship owners to pay for damages in full. If a ship is destroyed and passengers are harmed, the ship’s owner will be held financially responsible.

The new legislation also allows potential claimants to file for damages up to a year after an event, while previous law limited this time to six months.

“This is an important change inspired by the families of the 34 precious lives lost on the Conception in 2019, that will ensure families of future maritime disasters do not face the same antiquated laws when seeking the support they deserve,” Carbajal said in a statement.

The deadly Conception dive boat fire and sinking, which occurred on Sept. 2, 2019, illustrated the clear flaws in the 1851 law, legislators said.

Investigators determined the disaster was preventable, and that the probable cause of the fire and boat sinking was the operator’s failure to provide effective oversight of the vessel and crew, including the failure to provide a roving patrol as required.

The Conception’s owners, Glen and Dana Fritzler of Truth Aquatics, used the 19th-century law to file a suit to limit liability.

Carbajal expressed disappointment that the families of the Conception fire victims will not be affected by the legislative change. 

“Unfortunately, in the course of bipartisan negotiations earlier this year on our bill, there were some that felt that making this change retroactive for all past maritime accidents, as I had proposed, would go too far,” he said. “As I have made clear since March, I completely disagree with that line of thinking.”

He is exploring ways to get restitution for the families of Conception victims who “I have worked with and gotten to know over the past three years.”

Family members of the victims have filed wrongful death lawsuits in federal court and a civil case against the U.S. Coast Guard, alleging the agency certified a “‘fire trap’ small passenger vessel that was riddled with blatant life-safety violations.” 

They have also filed suit against the Conceptions’ operator, Truth Aquatics of Santa Barbara.

The Conception’s captain Jerry Nehl Boylan, who survived the fire along with four other crew members, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges for misconduct or neglect of a ship officer.