Boating is one of the most sought after leisurely activities. It is especially inviting to those stuck in dense urban areas. And Florida offers plenty of seas, all 1100 miles worth of it, excluding the keys.
Miami, in particular, is a hotspot for all things recreational. It has a fun; party atmosphere that drew a record-breaking 23.3 million visitors in 2018. The city also has a port, with a combined direct and indirect employment number of 334,500.
With such numbers of people performing a multitude of recreational and professional activities, boating-related incidents are bound to happen. A Miami Boating Accident Lawyer is the person to contact when such an incident happens for getting compensation and justice.
Steps To Take After Boating Incident
Anyone can rent and ride a boat or other marine vehicles without training or license. This increases the chances of a boating incident, especially in a place full of them like Miami. A Miami Boating Accident Lawyer needs to be consulted as they will guide you with taking the necessary steps for successfully getting your due compensation.
Health First
You don’t need a lawyer to tell you that you need to get yourself checked and treated for any injuries you may have sustained in the accident. You’ll need to be hospitalized if necessary. Fortunately, Miami is replete with hospitals close to the beach that can deal with such cases effectively.
Contact Legal Help
Once you feel you’re capable of it, contact the police and a boating accident attorney in Miami. The former will help with the case investigation, while the latter will help build a case for getting you compensated.
Doing this as soon as possible helps your lawyer get in on the case quickly and gather evidence as it comes out. They can coordinate with the police more efficiently and conduct their search for evidence if necessary before the incident starts to fade from eyewitnesses’ minds.
Refuse Coercion for Settlement
The other party might try to bury the incident by trying to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with you. They might even offer to pay you a limited sum of money to drop your efforts for getting compensation. You shouldn’t yield to any such efforts without your lawyer’s green signal.
Insurance companies are also notorious for trying to escape paying the amount they should. They might intervene early on as well. Again, talk to your lawyer about it, and don’t go ahead on your own.
If they try to push you legally or otherwise, refuse any communication with them and mention that you will only speak through your boating accident lawyer.
Learn Your Legal Standing
Florida law considers vessels as “dangerous instrumentalities”. This means the operator is responsible for handling it with utmost care to prevent injuries and death.
You can sue the boat owner/rider under criminal charges if they haven’t reported the collision, which has caused you injuries requiring hospitalization to concerned authorities. This comes under Section 327.30 of the Florida Statutes.
They can also be sued for not reporting just the accident itself, capsizing, sinking, the disappearance of a person due to suspected death/injurySW, damage to a vessel exceeding a total of $2000.
The laws applied can also vary depending on location. If the accident happened within the state’s waterways, water bodies, and just off the coast, Florida’s laws would apply. An accident far into the ocean will have Federal Laws applying to it.
Your boating accident lawyer will help determine the reason for the accident, such as negligence, reckless driving under the influence or weather, and the subsequent course of action.
A boating accident can take away more than just the fun of boating. A Miami Boating Accident Lawyer can help bring relief by getting you justice.
