Nathan Carman Case: In Providence Monday Pretrial Hearing With Insurers

NARRAGANSETT, RI—The companies that insured Nathan Carman's boat are going to court in Providence on Monday. National Liability & Fire Insurance Company and Boat Owners Association of the United States denied Carman's claim. Carman says it should be paid.

According to Carman's lawyer, Carman bought the policy in December 2015.

"In December 2015 Defendant Nathan Carman purchased All Risk, Agreed Value, Hull, and P&I insurance from the Defendants covering his recently purchased 31 Ft. recreational fishing vessel. In September 2016, while on a fishing trip with his mother, Mr. Carman’s 31ft recreational fishing vessel sank. As a result of this sinking, Mr. Carman’s mother drowned and the 31 ft. recreational fishing vessel was permanently lost. After spending roughly a week at sea in an inflatable life raft, Mr. Carman was rescued by a passing merchant vessel. In October 2016 Mr. Carman asserted a hull claim against the Plaintiffs arising from the sinking loss of his vessel. In November the Plaintiffs advised Mr. Carman that his claim would be accepted, and then for some undisclosed reason, Plaintiffs reversed their position."

But the company says it wasn't an accident the boat sank.

"Based on the following facts from his Examination Under Oath (“EUO”) testimony, plaintiffs will show that the sinking of Nathan Carman’s boat was neither accidental nor fortuitous because he had previously removed a structural bulkhead from the boat, because he had previously determined the boat’s “stuffing box wasn’t sealed to the hull properly,” because he never determined the boat’s aft bilge pump functioned correctly, and because several hours before departing from Ram Point Marina he removed the boat’s trim tabs and thereby opened four half dollar sized holes in the hull near the waterline and did not fill them in a satisfactory fashion, and then after he claims he “suddenly discovered the bilge was nearly full of water…Carman neither radioed for help nor activated the boat’s EPIRB” although he was a few feet from both his radio and EPIRB three different times while “[p]reparing for the possibility of abandoning ship.”

The insurers also are saying information about his grandfather's murder should be considered, while Carman's attorneys say it should not.

David Farrell, attorney for the insurers, said he will not comment after today's hearing.