China Cosco Shipping and New York-listed Danaos Corp have been drawn into a complex legal battle in a US federal court in Houston over a deadly fire on a container ship.
The courtroom sparring is focused on a blaze that struck the 2,174-teu Stride (built 1997) in January, killing two seafarers and injuring a third, while it was at the Barbours Cut Container Terminal in the Port of Houston.
The ship, which has since been sold for scrap, was owned by Greece’s Danaos and operated in the fleet of liner operator Cosco Shipping Lines.
At least three interrelated federal lawsuits have emerged out of the case, resulting in a tangle of claims and counterclaims among the owner, manager, an injured crew member, the families of the mariners who died and a bunker provider.
Legal documents claim the fire started in the Panama-flagged Stride’s engine room, although the cause remains under investigation.
In one of the lawsuits, the Stride’s registered owner and John Coustas’ Danaos Shipping, the private company that managed the container ship for Danaos Corp, has petitioned the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas to either limit its liability or exonerate it.
The companies’ lawyers at Houston firm Galloway, Johnson, Tompkins, Burr & Smith argued their liability should be capped at just under $482,000 — the $416,000 sale price for the damaged ship after the casualty plus the $65,600 in pending freight.
“The incident and any damages claimed as a result thereof were proximately caused in whole or in part by the negligent acts and/or omissions of third parties not under the control of the vessel and/or the limitation petitioners,” the lawyers said.
“Regardless of whether the incident and any damages claimed as a result thereof were occasioned by or resulted from any negligence or fault of the vessel, the limitation petitioners had no privity or knowledge of any alleged defect of the vessel, her appurtenances, or her crew that gave rise to the incident.”
Liability cap challenge
The legal fight began in Harris County Court, where seafarer Habibu Othman Khamis filed a lawsuit over what his attorneys described as “catastrophic injuries” during the fire.
He is pursuing more than $1m in negligence claims against the ship, Danaos, Cosco Shipping Lines and Buffalo Marine Service, which was bunkering the Stride at the time of the fire. The companies all deny the claims, with Cosco Shipping Lines North America insisting that the seafarer has targeted the wrong entity in the sprawling Cosco organisation.
The Tanzanian mariner has also challenged the liability cap sought by the shipowner and manager, claiming it is inadequate.
His attorneys at Texas law firm Roberts Markland have challenged whether the Danaos companies should be allowed to limit liability at all.
For its part, Cosco (Cayman) Mercury, the unit of China Cosco Shipping that was the legal charterer of the ship, has lodged a claim against the Danaos companies for any liability it faces in the incident.
The company’s lawyers at Royston, Rayzor, Vickery & Williams wrote that Cosco Mercury is not to blame.
“The claims and damages arising from the 8 January 2024 fire were caused, in whole or in part, by the unseaworthiness of the Stride existing at the commencement of its voyage, and/or by the negligence and other legal fault of the agents, servants, owners and employees of limitation petitioners,” they wrote.
At the time of the fire, Buffalo Marine Service was bunkering the Stride with the 171-gt tug Jacques-Imo (built 2012) and the 30,000-barrel tank barge Shamrock 500 (built 2011).
Buffalo and the bunker vessels’ owner, Timtom Land Holdings, have filed a lawsuit of their own to limit their own liability to the $7.4m value of the tug and barge, as well as seeking exoneration. The bunker vessels are insured by Steamship Mutual.
The companies’ lawyers said they were following all proper procedures at the time of the bunkering when the crew of the Stride called to shut down the fuel transfer from the Shamrock 500. The barge’s crew shut down the bunkering immediately, they said.
But Danaos’ lawyers have challenged the bunker vessel companies’ liability cap, alleging that they failed to properly train the crew and follow safe work and operational procedures.
Meanwhile, the families of the two dead Russian crew members are pursuing claims of their own.
The widows of seafarers Yuri Onyschchenko and Konstantin Taigachev have both filed lawsuits in Harris County Court and filed claims for unspecified amounts in the limitation of liability proceedings.
The Stride was classed by the Korean Register and was insured by Skuld.
