TYLER, Texas (Legal Newsline) - A Texas family lost their attempt to blame a boat manufacturer for a fatal nighttime collision with a bridge, after an appeals court noted the driver of the boat had consumed alcohol and there was no evidence the boat’s design or illuminated speakers had contributed to the crash.
Anthony Henegar, his teenage daughter Mason and several of their friends took Henegar’s motorboat out for a cruise around 11 p.m. on July 22, 2016. All of the adults had consumed alcohol beforehand and brought drinks with them on the boat. The boat had a “tower arch” equipped with lights and speakers.
A 15-year-old friend of Mason’s was driving the boat when they got lost and approached a highway bridge. The teenager gave the controls to Larry Scala, who misjudged the height of the bridge and when he abruptly slowed the boat the bow rose up, causing an impact with the bridge that shattered the windshield and brought the tower arch down on its passengers. Anthony Henegar suffered a traumatic brain injury, and his friend Dan Mohorc was killed.
Scala was arrested for intoxicated manslaughter, but the charges were later dropped. The Henegars sued Regal Marine Industries, the dealer who sold them the boat, and component manufacturers including the companies that made the illuminated compass and the lights on the tower arch. They hired three experts who testified that the lighting design and layout of the boat obstructed the driver’s view and caused the accident.
A trial court dismissed the case, citing testimony from the boat’s occupants that the lights weren’t on at the time of the crash. Mason testified she didn’t see the bridge prior to the collision because it was dark outside. Larry recalled the evening as “black as could be.” Anthony has no memory of the evening but testified he didn’t turn on the lights because they “affected his vision and disturbed the neighbors.”
The plaintiffs appealed, but the 12th Court of Appeals in Tyler affirmed the dismissal in a Jan. 5 decision, saying the evidence “does not rise above a scintilla” to prove their case.
In their appeal, the plaintiffs said their experts presented evidence the lights were on at the time of the crash, creating a fact question for a jury to decide. One expert found electrical evidence showing the compass light was on when it was broken in the crash, and there were pictures taken after the boat returned to shore showing the light switches were in the on position.
The appeals court said those photographs provided only circumstantial evidence at best, since the only thing they showed definitively was the switches were on when the photos were taken. Against this, the court said there was direct testimony from the boat’s occupants that the lights were off, that nobody complained about a lack of visibility caused by anything other than the fact it was night, and that the fact the boat was designed to hold passengers in front of the driver’s position didn’t affect visibility.
Since the plaintiff experts testified that the combination of design defects, from the compass lights to the forward seating, were proximate causes of the collision, the negation of any of them doomed their case, the appeals court ruled.
“When the circumstances are equally consistent with either of two facts, neither fact may be inferred, and the evidence does not rise above a scintilla if a factfinder would have to guess about the vital fact,” the court ruled. “Because the Henegars failed to produce more than a scintilla of evidence that the cockpit and speaker lights were on at the time of the collision, they failed to meet their burden to demonstrate that a genuine issue of material fact exists.”