Dodson & Hooks Resolves Claims for Nine Passengers Ejected in Louisiana Airboat Swamp Tour Capsizing

Dodson & Hooks represented nine swamp tour passengers who were thrown from an airboat into alligator inhabited water in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. The passengers had paid for a guided swamp tour. They came from New York, Tennessee, and the United Kingdom. What they encountered, according to the petition filed on their behalf, was a captain who baited an alligator toward the boat with raw chicken, ran the airboat at its highest speed across mud flats, and looked down at his phone as the vessel approached a turn.

The airboat struck a tree and flipped. Every passenger aboard went into the water. The vessel carried no radio, no whistle or other sound producing device, no first aid kit, and no life preserving equipment. There was no way to call for help.

All claims have been resolved. The terms are confidential and no settlement figure can be disclosed. Each resolution was a compromise of disputed claims, and the settling parties denied liability and wrongdoing. Every case turns on its own facts and a prior result does not predict or guarantee the outcome of any other matter.

The June 2023 Airboat Capsizing in Ama, Louisiana

On June 16, 2023, the passengers contracted with Rajun Cajun Airboat Tours, L.L.C. for a guided airboat tour through swamp waters near Ama, Louisiana, in St. Charles Parish. Rajun Cajun owned and operated the vessel. Shawn Richardson served as captain and operator and was acting in the course and scope of his employment.

The petition alleges that the trouble started early. Richardson operated the airboat negligently, recklessly, inattentively, and at high speed, and he did so deliberately, to frighten the people who had paid to ride with him. The passengers asked him repeatedly to stop. He disregarded every request.

Richardson told the group that an alligator had bitten him the day before and showed them the fresh wound as proof. During the tour he dangled chicken over the side of the boat to draw an alligator in. The alligator struck at the bait less than six inches from a passenger’s leg.

Richardson then broke away from the second airboat that the group had traveled alongside for most of the tour and took a different route. He accelerated to the vessel’s top speed. The airboat launched into the air each time it crossed a mud patch. As the boat approached a turn, Richardson was looking down at his phone. A passenger saw the turn coming, saw no sign that the boat was slowing, and waved his arms to get the captain’s attention. Richardson looked up, tried to correct the boat’s path, and the airboat skipped, hit a tree, and flipped. All nine passengers were ejected into the water.

An Airboat Tour Is a Maritime Case

Many injured tour passengers assume that a swamp tour injury is an ordinary Louisiana negligence claim. It usually is not. The claim was brought as an admiralty and maritime claim under 28 U.S.C. section 1333, and that characterization changes the analysis in ways that matter to the passenger.

Federal maritime law governs a vessel operating on navigable waters, and it supplies the duty a carrier owes to a paying passenger, the standard for unseaworthiness, the rules on damages, and the limitations period. General maritime law imposes on the owner an absolute and nondelegable duty to furnish a seaworthy vessel. That duty does not depend on proof that the owner knew of the defect. A vessel that lacks required safety equipment, or that is placed in the hands of an operator unfit to run it, can be unseaworthy as a matter of maritime law.

The saving to suitors clause preserves a passenger’s right to bring most maritime personal injury claims in state court rather than federal court, with the substantive law of admiralty still supplying the rule of decision. That choice can be significant. It affects the jury, the discovery schedule, the judge, and the pace of the case. An injured passenger should not assume that the forum a tour operator or its insurer prefers is the forum that serves the passenger.

Maritime claims also carry their own deadlines. A passenger ticket, a waiver, a website term of service, or a booking confirmation may attempt to shorten the time to sue or to fix the forum. Those provisions require close reading. They are not always enforceable, and they are not always disclosed in a way that binds the passenger. They should be examined before anyone signs a release or lets a deadline run.

Unseaworthiness and the Duty Owed to a Paying Passenger

A paying passenger on a commercial tour vessel is not a volunteer and is not a crew member. The passenger buys transportation and entertainment from an operator who controls the vessel, selects the route, hires the captain, and decides what safety equipment goes aboard. The passenger controls none of it.

The petition alleged that Rajun Cajun and Richardson breached that duty in specific ways: failing to provide a safe vessel for the tour, failing to supply safety equipment adequate to the hazards, failing to supervise the activity or maintain safety standards, failing to train the operator, failing to exercise care commensurate with conditions, and failing to warn passengers of the dangerous conditions of the tour.

The allegation of deliberate fright is distinct from ordinary carelessness. A captain who runs a vessel dangerously by accident has been negligent. A captain who runs it dangerously on purpose, to produce fear in his passengers, and who continues after the passengers ask him to stop, presents a different case entirely. The petition pleaded gross negligence and sought punitive damages, a remedy available under general maritime law in cases of willful and wanton misconduct and not available in an ordinary Louisiana negligence action.

The Missing Safety Equipment

Three equipment failures were pleaded, and each one independently mattered.

The airboat carried no radio, whistle, or other sound producing device. When nine people went into the water in a swamp, nobody could summon help. The airboat carried no first aid kit, so no one aboard could treat an injury. And the airboat lacked the life preserving equipment required by Louisiana Revised Statute 34:851.24, the state statute governing personal flotation devices aboard vessels.

Statutory equipment requirements do more than create a citation risk for the operator. In a maritime injury case they supply an objective standard against which the operator’s conduct is measured, and they defeat the argument that the operator did everything a reasonable tour company would do. A tour operator who has not put required flotation aboard has not made a judgment call. The operator has failed to meet a floor set by law.

Alligator Baiting and the Assumption of Risk Defense

A swamp tour operator will argue that the passenger knew alligators would be present, knew an airboat moves fast, and accepted those risks when buying a ticket. That argument has a real limit. A passenger assumes the ordinary risks inherent in the activity advertised. A passenger does not assume the risk that the captain will deliberately lure a predator to within six inches of her leg, or that he will operate the vessel at top speed while distracted by his phone, or that the boat will carry no flotation device at all.

The distinction is between the hazard the customer bought and the hazard the operator created. Swamp tours are sold on the promise of seeing wildlife safely. Baiting an alligator to the hull is not the tour that was sold. Neither is running the boat off the route the second vessel followed, at maximum speed, without watching where it is going.

Waivers signed at the dock deserve the same scrutiny. Louisiana law and general maritime law both restrict the extent to which a commercial carrier may contract away liability to a passenger, particularly for gross negligence or for conduct the operator engaged in intentionally. A signed waiver is the beginning of the analysis and not the end of it.

Nine Passengers, Three Countries, and One Coordinated Case

Five of the passengers were New York residents. Three were residents of the United Kingdom. One lived in Tennessee. None of them lived in Louisiana, and after the tour none of them remained in Louisiana.

A case with passengers scattered across two continents raises practical problems that have nothing to do with liability. Medical treatment happens in the passenger’s home jurisdiction, which means records arrive in different formats from different systems under different privacy laws. Depositions require coordination across time zones. Damages differ by claimant even though the accident was identical for everyone aboard, because each passenger had a different body, different work, and a different recovery. Foreign residents may face currency, translation, and tax questions that a domestic claimant never encounters.

The claims were resolved on an individual basis rather than as a single undifferentiated group. A passenger with a serious orthopedic injury and a passenger with a frightening experience and a lesser injury do not have the same case, and a lawyer who treats them identically shortchanges one of them.

When the Tour Company Is No Longer in Business

Rajun Cajun Airboat Tours, L.L.C. was listed by the Louisiana Secretary of State as inactive at the time suit was filed, and it was not authorized to do business in Louisiana even though it was doing business here.

This is a common and serious problem in the tour and recreation industry. A small operator may be undercapitalized, unregistered, administratively dissolved, or operating under a name that does not match any filed entity. Service of process becomes difficult. A judgment against a shell may be worth nothing.

For that reason a passenger claim against a tour operator must be developed with collection in mind from the first week. Counsel should identify the vessel’s ownership and documentation, locate any marine liability or commercial general liability policy, examine whether coverage was placed through a surplus lines carrier, look at the personal liability of the operator, and consider whether other entities, landowners, marinas, booking platforms, or affiliated companies bear responsibility. An inactive corporate registration does not end the inquiry. It begins it.

What to Do After a Louisiana Swamp Tour or Airboat Accident

Photograph the vessel, the safety equipment aboard or the absence of it, the route, and your injuries. Get the names and contact information of every passenger on your boat and on any companion boat, because visitors disperse quickly and are hard to find later. Keep your ticket, booking confirmation, receipt, and any waiver you signed, along with the screen you clicked through if you booked online.

Report the incident to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and to the United States Coast Guard where the casualty is reportable, and ask for the report number. Seek medical evaluation before leaving Louisiana if you can, because a gap between the accident and the first treatment note is the single most common argument an insurer raises against a tour passenger. Preserve your phone video. Passengers frequently record these tours, and passenger video is often the best evidence of how the vessel was being operated.

Do not give a recorded statement to the operator’s insurer and do not sign a release before you understand the maritime deadlines that apply to your claim. Those deadlines can be shorter than the Louisiana prescriptive period you may expect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an airboat swamp tour accident a maritime case?

Often yes. An airboat carrying paying passengers on navigable water is a vessel, and claims arising from its operation are commonly governed by general maritime law, including the owner’s duty to furnish a seaworthy vessel.

Does the waiver I signed at the dock bar my claim?

Not necessarily. Both Louisiana law and general maritime law limit a commercial carrier’s ability to disclaim liability to a paying passenger, and those limits are strongest where the conduct alleged is gross negligence or intentional.

Can I recover punitive damages?

General maritime law permits punitive damages for willful and wanton misconduct. Whether the facts of a particular case support that claim is a separate question.

I live outside Louisiana. Can I still bring a claim here?

Yes. Passengers who live in other states or other countries regularly pursue claims arising from Louisiana tour accidents. Residence does not determine where the claim is filed.

What if the tour company has gone out of business?

An inactive or dissolved company may still have insurance in place, and the operator and other entities involved may bear individual responsibility. The corporate status of the tour company is not the end of the analysis.

How long do I have to file?

Maritime claims carry their own limitations periods, and a ticket or waiver may attempt to shorten them further. Do not rely on a general assumption about the deadline. Have the documents reviewed.

Talk to a Louisiana Maritime and Airboat Accident Lawyer

Kenneth H. Hooks, III has practiced law in Louisiana since 1997 and handles maritime injury, personal injury, and wrongful death litigation in Louisiana state and federal courts. He is admitted in all Louisiana state and federal courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States, and he serves on the American Arbitration Association International Centre for Dispute Resolution seafarer panel and the London Maritime Arbitration Association.

If you or someone traveling with you was hurt on a Louisiana swamp tour, airboat, charter, or tour vessel, call Kenneth H. Hooks, III directly at (225) 235-3380 or email kenny@dodsonhooks.com. Dodson & Hooks handles these matters on a contingency fee basis. There is no fee unless a recovery is made.

Dodson & Hooks, LLC, 112 Founders Drive, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70810.

Counsel of record in this matter were Kenneth H. Hooks, III, H. Price Mounger, III, and L’Reece David.