Renter of Recreational Vessel Owes No Duty to Warn of Foul Weather

Renter of Recreational Vessel Owes No Duty to Warn of Foul Weather

By: Jennifer Mura

In re: Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services, LLC, 831 F.3d 1264 (10th Cir. 2016)In April 2009, three couples rented a recreational vessel from Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services, LLC (Aramark) for a day trip on Lake Powell. They signed a rental agreement containing a limited liability clause and received a weather forecast for the next day. During the return trip, the weather deteriorated causing the vessel to take on water and ultimately claiming the lives of two of the three couples.On the morning of the boating trip, an updated weather forecast predicted wind speeds up to 35 miles per hour with gusts up to 55 miles per hour. The vessel was a Category C design, which has a wind speed limitation of 31 miles per hour. The couples were never informed of the design limitations of the boat.Aramark filed a petition for limitation of liability. The district court denied the petition stating that Aramark’s negligence was a contributing cause of the accident because it had a duty to monitor weather forecasts before renting boats and breached its duty by allowing the couples to leave the marina that morning. The Tenth Circuit disagreed with the methodology used by the district court in determining Aramark owed a duty solely on the basis that the danger was foreseeable. The Court instead relied on the Restatement of Torts, which provides that in certain classes of cases the determination of whether there is a duty should be a policy matter, and concluded that this was one of those cases.The Tenth Circuit addressed the issue of Aramark’s duty under general tort principles in relationship to the Limitation of Liability Act. In determining whether a shipowner is entitled to limited liability, the first question is whether negligence caused the accident and the second question is whether the shipowner had knowledge of the negligence. Here, Aramark acknowledged that the cause of the accident was bad weather. The sole remaining issue was a question of negligence. To determine whether Aramark was negligent, the court first analyzed whether Aramark owed a duty to the renters.Under this examination, the Court first determined that Aramark did not have a duty to monitor the weather and notify the couples of any updated forecasts. It cited several cases and the Restatement to support this conclusion. The Court reasoned that Aramark did not create the danger nor was it in a superior position in regards to knowledge of the weather conditions. Basically, the couples could have just as easily obtained the weather forecast.Second, the Court rejected the claim that Aramark could be liable for allowing customers to rent boats in bad weather conditions. This claim was unsupported by the record because the weather was not dangerous at the time of the rental.The Court then addressed whether Aramark had a duty to warn the couples of the boat’s design limitations. The Court stated that Aramark did have a duty to exercise reasonable care; however, the court would not determine whether Aramark failed to exercise reasonable care by not warning the boaters about the boat’s limitation. Accordingly, the Court remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. As for Aramark’s claim that the boater’s negligence was the superseding cause of the accident, the Court declined to decide this as a matter of law because several issues were still factually disputed.