$190M in 2 Years: Florida Firm Make Waves in Safety Reform

A Palm Beach Gardens firm recently secured an $86 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit, bringing its winning streak in less than two years to nearly $190 million while bringing change to the boating industry.

Litigators from Clark, Fountain, Littky-Rubin & Whitman, led by partners Ben J. Whitman, Don Fountain, and Julie H. Littky-Rubin, targeted over 10 defendants, addressing intricate claims of professional negligence and product defects. The litigation unfolded under a court-mandated 18-month timeline, culminating in a settlement just days before a scheduled jury trial.

Due to a confidentiality agreement, the firm cannot release the name of the litigant sued, but they were able to share a few details.

The case centered on the failure of multiple interconnected safety systems on a commercial premises, requiring the firm to navigate a web of legal and factual complexities.

The team conducted over fifty depositions, briefed numerous technical legal issues, and collaborated with more than twenty experts to build a robust case.

Whitman emphasized the strategic demands imposed by the expedited timeline: “The court’s definitive schedule forced us to litigate proactively while managing an unprecedented number of issues. Our goal was to ensure comprehensive representation for our clients’ tragic loss.”

This $86 million pre-verdict settlement ranks among the largest single wrongful death settlements in the U.S., setting a precedent for handling high-exposure catastrophic cases under tight deadlines, the firm said.

The litigation’s impact extends beyond the courtroom, as the relevant regulatory body is now revising industry safety standards to prevent similar incidents, directly influenced by the lawsuit’s findings.

The settlement not only delivers justice for the plaintiffs but also signals broader implications for industries facing scrutiny over safety system failures, reinforcing accountability through litigation-driven reform, Whitman said.

“The greatest challenges in this case were analyzing and piecing together a multi-layered failure of interconnected safety systems,” Whitman said. “We were dealing with a tragic incident that occurred on a commercial premises, and there were multiple separate but interconnected safety systems, and they all failed.”

Whitman and the team said they had to analyze and understand the failure modes of each system and how they all interacted, leading to the lawsuit.

Out-of-pocket expenses over the course of the litigation were a big gamble, the lawyers said.

“The investment cost was over $2 million through the experts and other litigation-related costs,” Whitman said.

Affecting Change $100M Settlement from Malibu Boats

That same theme of broader safety changes through litigation was reiterated in their 2023 $100 million settlement, which preceded their most recent courtroom success.

“That was a trial, a verdict in 2021, an appeal, and then a settlement on appeal,” Whitman said. “And shortly after the settlement in Batchelder v. Malibu Boats LLC., the company that manufactured that product issued a safety bulletin that addressed all the issues that we had to litigate.”

The firm said they were proud of the back-to-back wins because “number one, our firm’s commitment to public safety and that through our cases, not only are we trying to compensate our clients for the harms that they’ve suffered, but we also want to try to prevent these things from happening again and make the public safer,” Whitman said. “And we were able to secure the two settlements within a range of two years.”

In previous litigation, Clark, Fountain, alongside Atlanta attorneys Drew Ashby and Max Thelen, secured a $100 million settlement against Malibu Boats, LLC, following a 2014 boat swamping incident that killed 7-year-old Ryan Batchelder.

The settlement, reached during an appeal after a three-week trial in Rabun County, Georgia, forced Malibu to pay $74 million from its own funds, as its $26 million insurance coverage fell short. This prompted a separate bad-faith lawsuit by Malibu against insurers Chubb and Starr.

The incident occurred during a family reunion on Lake Burton, Georgia, when a rented 2000 Malibu Response LX ski boat swamped at low speed, sweeping Ryan, seated in the bow and wearing a life jacket, into the unprotected propeller.

The jury found Malibu Boats West, Inc., and Malibu Boats, LLC liable for the boat’s defective design, which added bow seating without engineering analysis, making it prone to swamping.

Despite settlement offers capped at $2 million, the jury awarded $80 million for Ryan’s pain, suffering, and wrongful death, plus $120 million in punitive damages.

The verdict spurred Malibu to issue a 2023 nationwide safety alert, warning users of swamping risks and advising against bow seating while moving.

Plaintiff’s co-counsel Don Fountain noted the verdict’s global impact.

“It was a classic case where a specific litigation matter and a specific jury verdict changed the entire industry,” Fountain said. “And the reason I say a change in industry is because every other boat manufacturer paid very, very close attention to what happened in that case, and they’ve made changes to their processes to make sure their boats don’t have the same problem.”

Clark Fountain’s success underscores its expertise in managing complex, multi-defendant litigation with over $1 billion in recoveries across 26 states.