THE LAST DAY TO FILE A CLAIM AGAINST JEFFRY KNIGHT IS TODAY SEPTEMBER 8, 2025 FOR THE APRIL 27, 2025 BOAT COLLISION
The much-publicized boating collision involving a vessel being driven by Jeffry Knight which collided with a ferry carrying multiple passengers on April 27, 2025 is being litigated in federal court in Tampa, Florida. The federal Magistrate in this case gave a deadline of September 8, 2025 in which claimants could file a claim or possibly be forever barred from making a claim in any venue.
After the collision, attorneys for Jeffry Knight filed what is known as a Limitation of Liability Complaint in federal court. As the name of that lawsuit suggests, the insurance company for Jeffry Knight filed a civil suit in federal court on June 22, 2025 seeking to “limit” the damages of all claimants to the worth of Jeffry Knight’s vessel after the crash. According to federal court documents the worth of the Knight vessel, a 38-foot 2018 Statement with three outboard motors, is “no more than … $270,000.00”. (July 28, 2025 Docket Entry 9, pg. 2.)
The usual full title of such a civil action is “Exoneration From Or Limitation Of Liability” petition. This is a federal law which was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1851, well before the Civil War, and can be found at 46 United States Code §30501, et seq. The intention of Congress was to limit the liability of the owner of a vessel to the worth of the vessel after an accident in certain circumstances where the owner was not at fault or “in privity with” those who were at fault. The original law appears to have been intended to have a commercial purpose, but it has clearly been applied and used by marine insurance companies to try to limit payment on injury claims in the recreational boating accident context. Limitation of Liability cases are now frequently filed in boating accidents and personal watercraft injury cases. The objective is the same: no matter the severity of the injuries, the boat or personal watercraft (a/k/a “Jetski”) insurer wants to limit the payout to an amount much smaller than the available amount of insurance. In most cases the owner of a vessel is not aware of such a law but does have an interest in the casualty being resolved within his or her insurance coverage, or less.
A Limitation action forces all claimants to appear in federal court, in one forum, and make their claims. The claims should be timely and submitted in a proper format. In this case the official deadline to file a claim is Monday, September 8, 2025. At times late claimants have been allowed to make a claim, but have to petition the federal court and convince the judge to allow them in after the claim cutoff date. Once the official claim date passes, it is typical for the vessel owner’s attorneys to immediately file for a default against all untimely non-filing claimants. This motion for default against all non-filing claimants is typically granted within just a few days by the federal court.
A failure by a claimant in timely filing a claim in federal court can cause the claimant not to be able to pursue a claim in any other forum, not even in state court for instance. The best case is for any claimant to timely file his or her claim in the federal court and not be on the outside requesting to allow late entry of a claim. The late filing claimant could also face opposition from those claimants who did timely filed their claims, especially in a case with several claimants and potential extensive injuries and one known death.
