I was interested why this incident, which was subject of a protest and two subsequent appeal hearings, ever ended up in court.
Amorita in full gear
On Monday in the Village Soup an article appeared announcing that the two parties had settled out of court. The post, written by Holly S. Anderson, has no information on the how and the what. Both sets of lawyers are keeping stumm, so to speak. And in the court records the settlement was not made public. You can read the whole post: Settlement reached in Sumurun lawsuit
I'm not surprised by a settlement. Sumurun was disqualified in the protest and both appeals were denied, but it would have been interesting to read what a court would have made of the whole case.
Now we will never know.
I think that it is extremely likely that the courts would follow a US federal court* decision dating from the 1990's that held that when boats are racing, liability will be allocated as provided in the RRS, rather than the International Rules or the US Inland Rules. It seems likely also that the settlement took into account the actual cost of repairs and perhaps possible loss of use of the boat, but that this would be far far less than the $US 1M claimed in the suit filed by Amorita's owners.
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* Your international readers will want to remember that in the US, there are two sets of courts, the state courts that generally speaking have jurisdiction to decide disputes within a state, and the "federal" courts established under the US Constitution to decide disputes between the citizens of more than one state, and other disputes including many maritime and admiralty claims. The two sets of courts do not always follow the same rules.
The full story will come out. Including all of the legal documents and protest filings. Ny understanding is that it was ALL included in the public records, and is not bound by any donfidentiality agreement / gag orders.
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