Senate committee considers changing law after Ride the Ducks case
Jan 18, 2018, 12:07 PM | Updated: 12:15 pm
A Washington state law about wrongful death claims stopped three families from seeking compensation after their children died in a September crash involving a Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicle. (AP)
(AP)
Prompted by the tragic 2015 Ride the Ducks crash, lawmakers are now considering taking down an old Washington law that blocks compensation for certain families in wrongful death cases.
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Five international students were killed when a Ducks vehicle crashed into the side of their tour bus on the Aurora Bridge in Seattle on Sept. 24, 2015. They were part of a tour group from North Seattle College. Three families of the victims sued Ride the Ducks for wrongful death, but their claims in U.S. court were challenged because they are not American citizens. Ultimately, a judge dismissed their case.
More specifically, Washington law states that the parents of the children who died in the crash — all 20-years old — had to have been in the country at the time of the incident in order for them to sue. The families are from South Korea.
Washington’s Senate Law and Justice Committee is holding a hearing Thursday to consider a bill that would change that law, which originally went on the books in 1917. It was written and intended to stop the wives of Chinese coal miners from collecting money if their husbands died in industrial accidents.
Washington is one just three states in the nation that blocks non-residents from getting money in wrongful death cases.
