Boynton Beach Boat Accident Lawyer
A day on the water ended with somebody in an ambulance, and whatever they were on has already been trailered away. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Boynton Beach personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Palm Beach County since 1993.
Boat Accident claims in Boynton Beach
There is no police report the way there is on a road, and by evening the witnesses have scattered to five different marinas. Meanwhile you are dealing with the injury, the lost work, and an owner whose story is settling into something convenient. Finding those witnesses while they can still be found is our job, and it starts the day you call.
The inlet here is tighter than the ones north and south of it, with a strong tidal flow and a constant mix of small recreational craft and larger vessels running through. Add rental boats and personal watercraft operated by people with no local knowledge and the collisions concentrate in a short stretch of water. Where a rental is involved, the operator who caused the crash is the primary claim and the rental business may be liable separately for renting to someone unqualified or for a vessel that was not maintained.
The Boynton Inlet is tighter than the ones north and south of it, with a strong tidal flow and a constant mix of small craft and larger vessels. Where a rental is involved, the operator who caused the crash is the primary claim and the rental business may be liable separately for its own failures.
What to do after a boat accident in Boynton Beach
- Get names and numbers before anyone leaves the water. Everybody aboard both vessels, and anybody nearby who saw it. This matters far more than after a road crash: there is no exchange of licenses at the roadside, no responding officer taking details as routine, and within twenty minutes every witness has motored off in a different direction and cannot be found again.
- Photograph both vessels and the registration numbers. The damage, the hull numbers, the name and homeport, the console, and anything about the conditions worth recording. A vessel gets repaired, repainted, renamed or sold, and unlike a car it does not sit in a yard waiting for anyone. Where it was a rental, photograph the craft, its number and the operator’s branding.
- Establish whether it was reported, and to whom. Boating accidents are reported to the state rather than to a local police department, and plenty are never reported at all. Find out which agency has it and get the incident number. Where nothing was reported, that is not the end of the case, but it does mean everything has to be built from the vessels, the marina, the charter paperwork and the people who were there.
- Keep every piece of paper the day generated. The charter agreement, the rental contract, the safety briefing sheet you signed, the receipt, the listing, the waiver. Where a rental or charter is involved these documents decide who is answerable and what they undertook, and they exist in one copy on a phone that gets replaced.
- See a doctor, and understand that nothing pays automatically. After a car crash your own policy covers the first bills whoever caused it. On the water it does not, and people delay treatment because of it, which then becomes the argument about how badly they were hurt. Go anyway, on health insurance, and let the coverage question be worked out afterward. Some marine policies carry limited medical payments cover and it is worth checking early.
Where these happen on the water in Boynton Beach
A short stretch of water produces most of this city’s cases, and a large share of the traffic through it belongs to people who have never run it before.
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The inlet itself
Narrow, with a strong tidal set, and unforgiving of anybody who does not know it.
- Small recreational craft meeting larger vessels with no room to maneuver
- Tidal flow that carries a vessel somewhere its operator did not intend
- Standing waves and confused water on an outgoing tide against a swell
- Operators with no local knowledge, which is most of the seasonal traffic
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Rentals and personal watercraft
The defining feature of these claims here, and the reason there is often more than one defendant.
- The instruction the livery had to give: handling, safe operation, local hazards and emergency procedures
- The boating safety identification the law requires the renter to produce
- The minimum age for renting a motorized vessel, which is 18
- Maintenance records for the specific craft, and any earlier reports of the same fault
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The Intracoastal through the city
Slow-speed water carrying constant traffic, where the rules exist and are widely ignored.
- Wake injuries to people aboard other vessels and to vessels at moorings
- Idle and manatee zones, and what a vessel was actually doing through them
- Swimmers and people in the water near anchored boats
- Propeller injuries, which are the worst outcome and involve somebody over the side
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Marinas, docks and the ramp
A meaningful share of these injuries happen at very low speed, or at none.
- Boarding and disembarking, on dock structures somebody else maintains
- Fuel dock incidents, including fire and spills
- Trailers and launching, where a vessel or a vehicle is involved rather than open water
- A premises claim against the facility alongside the claim against an operator
What causes them
- Wake taken badly, or thrown at a smaller vessel that could not absorb it
- Passengers not warned before a turn, a wake or a change of speed
- Collisions at inlets and passes, where traffic converges and the water is unforgiving
- Groundings on shoals that move between seasons and charts
- Rental and personal watercraft operated by people with no local knowledge and no instruction
- Overloading, and passengers riding on bows, gunwales and transoms
The injuries we see, and what each one turns on
Propeller injuries
Among the most severe injuries in this practice, and almost always involving somebody who was in the water. They cause deep lacerations, amputation and death, and the questions are where the engine was, whether it was shut down, what the operator could see and what was being done to keep track of people over the side.
Drowning and near-drowning
Oxygen deprivation damages the brain without any blow to the head, and the effects appear later as difficulty with attention, memory, behavior or mood. Somebody who was resuscitated and discharged looking well should still have a neurological baseline taken.
Burns, and injuries from fire aboard
Fuel systems, engine spaces and battery installations produce fires that are hard to escape on a vessel underway. These are frequently equipment and maintenance cases rather than operator cases, and the vessel itself is the evidence.
What Florida law requires you to prove
What the operator owed everyone aboard
An operator owes passengers reasonable care in how the vessel is handled: speed for the conditions, how a wake is taken, keeping a proper lookout and warning people before a maneuver. That is why an injury with no collision at all is still an ordinary negligence claim, which surprises most people. Most claims arising on or after March 24, 2023 carry a two-year deadline under Fla. Stat. § 95.11, and fault is shared under Fla. Stat. § 768.81.
The report goes to the state, and it is often not made
Under Fla. Stat. § 327.30 the operator must report without delay, by the quickest means available, where there is a death, a disappearance, an injury needing treatment beyond immediate first aid, or apparent damage of at least $2,000. It goes to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s law enforcement division, the sheriff or the municipal police, and the same section requires an operator to render practicable assistance and give their name, address and vessel identification. A failure to report does not end a claim. It means the case gets built from the vessels, the marina, the paperwork and the witnesses instead.
A rental business has duties of its own
Where the vessel was rented, the operator who caused the crash is one claim and the livery may be liable separately. Under Fla. Stat. § 327.54 a livery must give pre-rental instruction covering handling, safe operation, local waterway hazards and emergency procedures, may not rent to somebody who has not produced the boating safety identification the law requires of them, and may not rent a motorized vessel to anybody under 18. It must also carry liability coverage of at least $500,000 per person and $1 million per event, and either provide renter coverage or offer it and take a signed waiver. The instruction record, the agreement and the maintenance log decide it.
Alcohol, and who else may answer for it
Florida applies the same alcohol limit to operating a vessel as to driving, and it is a factor in a meaningful share of serious cases. Where drink was served aboard a charter or supplied by a commercial operator, that can put another party in the claim alongside the operator. It is worth establishing early what was served, by whom and to whom, because the people who could say are the same ones who scatter after the incident.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide boat accident page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Palm Beach County
Where a rental is involved, an unusual amount of this case exists in writing before anybody was injured, and it we can get.
- The rental agreement, the safety briefing record and any waiver signed
- What identification the livery checked, and whether it checked at all
- Maintenance and inspection records for the specific craft, and prior reports of the same fault
- The livery’s liability coverage, which must be at least $500,000 per person and $1 million per event
- Whether renter coverage was provided, offered, or declined in writing
- Names and numbers for everyone aboard and anybody nearby who saw it
- Photographs of both craft, the damage and the hull numbers, taken on the day
- Whether a report was made, to which agency, and the incident number
The livery’s own paperwork is frequently the strongest evidence in the case, and it is paperwork the business created for its own protection. It is requested early, before anybody has had reason to reorganize a filing system.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Boynton Beach is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled boat accident claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Brett Yonon is who this firm puts on a catastrophic injury or a death in the family, and he has tried those cases to verdict. Full profile → -
Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile →
What the other side says about a boating claim
Marine claims are handled by adjusters who know that most of the evidence goes home on other people’s boats. The arguments below all depend on that.
- You signed a waiver
- Charters and liveries hand these out routinely and their reach is narrower than the language suggests. Enforceability depends on the wording and on what is actually being excused, and Florida limits how far a business can contract out of its own negligence. Have the document read rather than a summary of it taken over the phone.
- The renter was given a full safety briefing
- Then there is a record of it, and it is worth seeing. A livery has to provide instruction covering the vessel’s handling, safe operation, local hazards and emergency procedures, and has to check the boating safety identification where the law requires the renter to hold one. Whether that happened is documented, and a briefing nobody can evidence is a briefing that is hard to prove.
- Your own insurance covers your medical bills
- Health insurance usually pays first, and that is not the end of it. Whatever it pays comes back out of any recovery through a lien, so it is money advanced rather than given. Some marine policies carry limited medical payments coverage and an uninsured boater endorsement occasionally exists, both worth finding early. The fourteen-day rule that governs your own coverage after a car crash does not apply on the water.
What a claim can include
Scarring and disfigurement
A separate claim after a propeller injury or a burn. Photograph the healing as it happens, because a record of what it looked like at three weeks does not exist unless somebody made it.
The vessel and what was aboard
Repair or value of your own boat, and the equipment, phones and belongings lost over the side or destroyed.
What a family may recover after a death
Funeral and medical expenses, lost support and services, and the losses the statute assigns to particular survivors, brought by the personal representative of the estate.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Boynton Beach
A Boynton Beach boating case is filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit at the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach, a few minutes from this office. Where a claim runs against both an operator and a rental business, they are on different terms and different insurers, and holding them in one file is what stops each pointing at the other.
Fewer than one percent of Florida lawyers are Board Certified in Civil Trial law: 861 of them, against a Bar membership over 109,000. Richard Pravato is one, and has been since 2004. Carriers price a claim partly on who is holding it, which is the practical reason that matters to somebody deciding who to call.
A consultation costs nothing, and neither does the case unless we recover money for you. Where we do not believe a claim is worth bringing, we will tell you plainly rather than take it on and let it drift.
Boynton Beach boat accident questions
A rented jet ski hit me. Can I claim against the rental company?
Potentially, alongside the claim against the operator. Florida requires rental businesses to provide safety instruction and to check that the operator holds what the law requires, and a business that skips it, or that rents out a poorly maintained craft, can be liable in its own right. The rental agreement, the instruction record and the maintenance log are the documents that decide it.
I signed a waiver at the rental counter.
Almost everybody does, and its reach is narrower than the language suggests. Enforceability depends on the wording, on what is actually being excused and on the circumstances, and Florida limits how far a business can contract out of its own negligence. None of it touches the claim against the operator who hit you. Bring the document rather than a summary of what you remember it saying.
The person driving was a teenager.
Then that is worth establishing precisely, because a livery may not knowingly rent a motorized vessel to anybody under 18, and there are separate requirements about the boating safety identification a renter has to produce. If the business rented to somebody it should not have, that is its own liability, independent of how the collision happened.
Does my car insurance cover a boating accident?
Generally not. Florida PIP applies to motor vehicles rather than vessels, so there is usually no automatic no-fault benefit after a boating injury. Your health insurance, any medical payments coverage on a marine policy, and the vessel owner’s liability coverage are the usual sources.
I signed a waiver when I rented the boat. Is my claim over?
Not necessarily. Waivers are common and they are frequently narrower than they appear, and their enforceability depends on the wording, the circumstances and the conduct being excused. Bring us the agreement rather than assuming it ends the matter.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 1375 E Gateway Blvd, Boynton Beach, FL 33426.