Something on-topic for a change:

"The family of a Hazlet police officer who died 16 months after he was
critically burned in a pleasure-boat explosion reached a $2.4 million
settlement with the boat owner and manufacturer.

Thomas M. Warn, 37, sustained second- and third-degree burns in the Nov.
18, 1997 accident when a spark ignited gasoline fumes from a faulty gas
tank on the 28-foot fiberglass Silverton Sport Fisherman, according
Raymond A. Gill, attorney for his estate."

More...

http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,882943,00.html

It's always tragic when somebody gets injured, or dies.

Still, one has to wonder how much of the responsibility should be placed on the
manufacturer and how much should be assigned to the subsequent owner (s) lack
of maintenance when the failed fuel tank is
*twenty-five years old* (!). An old fuel tank can be fine- but everything
manufactured has a reasonable useful life and once that life has beed exceeded
it should become
more incumbent on the boat owner to make periodic judgments about its continued
use.

Probably never occured to the boat owner that the fuel tank might need
replacing. How often do we ever replace fuel tanks in the family car, pickup,
or other motorized conveyance?

If the boat had been recently purchased and surveyed, the owner would have
known about the leaky fuel tank and it would have been tougher for the
plaintiff to say that Silverton should have installed a fuel tank that couldn't
or wouldn't rust out after 25-years.

It's another good reason to encourage a buyer to get a survey when you sell a
boat.
It's easy to assume that the owner must have owned this boat a long time, or
had such a survey. If that were not the case,
it's likely a recent seller would have been named in the suit with some claim
that the seller "knew, or should have known" that the fuel tank was ready to
fail.

It's important to disclose any known defects at time of sale, but when the
buyer hires an independent surveyor it takes a lot of heat off the seller. It
can be effectively argued that in the end the buyer made a final purchasing
decision based on the recommendations of his own, hired expert
rather than on representations made by the seller. The seller is still
responsible for things the seller knew about- but the survey helps insulate the
seller from stuff that jumps up, (surprising everybody), and bites the buyer on
the butt.

On 08 Jan 2004 15:28:15 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

It's always tragic when somebody gets injured, or dies.

~~ snip ~~

According to the article, there are actually three issues - did the
owner know that the tank was bad; did Silverton exacerabate the
accident by utilizing a poor drainage design allowing the tank to
deteriorate; did the victim use proper precautions (as in airing out
the bilge, etc) before hooking up the batteries?

After reading the article, it would appear that all parties were
culpable. There had to be a lot of gas in the bilge and a lot of fumes
for that kind of ignition to occur - the smell of gas had to have been
strong for a spark from a battery hookup to ignite the fumes.

Which is not to say that the manufacturer isn't culpable for the
design flaw and the owner for not maintaining the boat properly (if
indeed that was the case), but it would appear that the manufacturer
took the major hit because it had the deeper pockets, not because it
was any more or less responsible for the accident than the victim or
the owner was.

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------
"My rod and my reel - they comfort me."

St. Pete, 12 Lb. Test

In this area , with it's reliance on 'road salt' during the winter, you can
count on replacing your gas tank usually within 10 years.
Just had to replace the tank on my 1995 Plymouth Voyager this fall.

Gould 0738 wrote in message
snip
Probably never occured to the boat owner that the fuel tank might need
replacing. How often do we ever replace fuel tanks in the family car,
pickup,
or other motorized conveyance?

snip

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 16:09:02 GMT, "Don White"
wrote:

In this area , with it's reliance on 'road salt' during the winter, you can
count on replacing your gas tank usually within 10 years.
Just had to replace the tank on my 1995 Plymouth Voyager this fall.

Interesting - where do you live?

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------
"My rod and my reel - they comfort me."

St. Pete, 12 Lb. Test

In this area , with it's reliance on 'road salt' during the winter, you can
count on replacing your gas tank usually within 10 years.
Just had to replace the tank on my 1995 Plymouth Voyager this fall.

Good point. We just had our "annual" snowfall in Seattle. Gone after two days.
Likely won't see any more for a good long while. :-)

Where else??.... *** http://www.halifaxinfo.com/ ***


Short Wave Sportfishing wrote in
Interesting - where do you live?

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------
"My rod and my reel - they comfort me."

St. Pete, 12 Lb. Test

On 08 Jan 2004 15:28:15 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

It's always tragic when somebody gets injured, or dies.

Still, one has to wonder how much of the responsibility should be placed on the
manufacturer and how much should be assigned to the subsequent owner (s) lack
of maintenance when the failed fuel tank is
*twenty-five years old* (!). An old fuel tank can be fine- but everything
manufactured has a reasonable useful life and once that life has beed exceeded
it should become
more incumbent on the boat owner to make periodic judgments about its continued
use.

It's called personal responsibility.



Probably never occured to the boat owner that the fuel tank might need
replacing. How often do we ever replace fuel tanks in the family car, pickup,
or other motorized conveyance?

If the boat had been recently purchased and surveyed, the owner would have
known about the leaky fuel tank and it would have been tougher for the
plaintiff to say that Silverton should have installed a fuel tank that couldn't
or wouldn't rust out after 25-years.

It's another good reason to encourage a buyer to get a survey when you sell a
boat.
It's easy to assume that the owner must have owned this boat a long time, or
had such a survey. If that were not the case,
it's likely a recent seller would have been named in the suit with some claim
that the seller "knew, or should have known" that the fuel tank was ready to
fail.

It's important to disclose any known defects at time of sale, but when the
buyer hires an independent surveyor it takes a lot of heat off the seller. It
can be effectively argued that in the end the buyer made a final purchasing
decision based on the recommendations of his own, hired expert
rather than on representations made by the seller. The seller is still
responsible for things the seller knew about- but the survey helps insulate the
seller from stuff that jumps up, (surprising everybody), and bites the buyer on
the butt.

I agree with your assessment. This is yet another example of someone
looking to defer responsibility away from themselves and onto another
entity which happens to have deep pockets. I resent those people who
look to turn a tragedy into a windfall.

Sometimes Sh*t happens. Manufacturers should not be made to bear any
more responsibility for product liability beyond the date of
manufacture. There is no reasonable way that they can be expected to
predict every circumstance that their products can be exposed to.

Mindsets like this will bring about the end to many companies and
greatly increase the consumer cost of goods for the rest.

Dave

Actually, it's a combination of things. We go through the freeze/thaw cycle
all winter long combined with living on the coast and heavy roadsalt usage.
The Big 3 automakers used to consider this as an extreme auto body corrosion
area. Even now, with better materials etc, anyone with a lick of sense and
who plans to keep their auto for a long period of time applies rustproofing.
I get it done yearly at 'Krown Rustproofing' for about $120.00 Cdn.

WaIIy wrote in message
...
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 17:05:04 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 16:09:02 GMT, "Don White"
wrote:

In this area , with it's reliance on 'road salt' during the winter, you
can
count on replacing your gas tank usually within 10 years.
Just had to replace the tank on my 1995 Plymouth Voyager this fall.

Interesting - where do you live?

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT

That is interesting. I can't imagine a place that salts more than
Northern Ohio and I have never heard of a salt-related auto gas tank
failure.

Natural selection. Another idiot messing about in boats with no knowledge of
same.

Butch