West Palm 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 West Palm Beach personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Palm Beach County since 1993.
Boat Accident claims in West Palm 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.
Palm Beach County boating claims bunch up around the inlet and the Intracoastal either side of it, where recreational vessels share a working channel with commercial and cruise traffic. Wake injuries, collisions in the channel and passengers thrown on board are the recurring cases, and the last of those catches people out: an injury with no collision at all is still a claim against the operator, whose duty covers how the vessel is handled and how passengers are kept safe. Alcohol is a factor in a meaningful share, and Florida's limits for operating a vessel are the same as for driving.
Palm Beach County boating claims bunch up around the Lake Worth Inlet, where recreational vessels share a working channel with commercial traffic. An injury with no collision at all is still a claim: an operator owes passengers reasonable care in how the vessel is handled. Those cases usually have no report, so witnesses taken on the day matter.
What to do after a boat accident in West Palm 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 West Palm Beach
One channel carries almost all of it, and the mix of traffic through it is what makes this county’s cases what they are.
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The inlet and the channel
Recreational vessels, commercial traffic and cruise operations converging in a working waterway.
- Collisions where a small vessel meets a large one in a channel neither can leave
- Wake injuries from vessels that had no room or no reason to slow
- Visibility and lookout, which is the recurring failure rather than speed alone
- Commercial operators, who carry substantial coverage and their own investigators
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Passengers thrown aboard
The case people assume is not a case, and one of the most common we take.
- A wake taken at the wrong angle or the wrong speed
- A turn or a change of speed with no warning to anybody aboard
- Passengers riding on bows, gunwales and transoms where they should not have been
- No collision, therefore usually no report, therefore witnesses are the case
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Alcohol
A factor in a meaningful share of the serious ones, and Florida applies the same limit on the water as on the road.
- What was served aboard, by whom, and to whom
- Charter and commercial operators who supplied it, who may answer separately
- Whether any testing was done, and how long after
- Receipts, bar tabs and photographs from the day, which fix it better than memory
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The Intracoastal either side of it
Congested, slow-speed water where the traffic is constant and the wake rules are routinely ignored.
- Manatee and idle zones, and vessels running through them
- Moored and anchored vessels struck or swamped
- Dock and marina incidents, which bring a property claim alongside the vessel one
- Local knowledge, or its absence in seasonal and rental traffic
What causes them
- Alcohol, where Florida applies the same limit on the water as on the road
- 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
The injuries we see, and what each one turns on
Spinal injury from impact and from repeated slamming
A single hard landing can fracture vertebrae, and so can a sustained run through rough water where every wave lands through the spine. The second kind gets dismissed because there was no single moment, which is why what the passage was actually like needs describing while people still remember it.
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.
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
A boating case is built from things that leave the scene under their own power, so almost everything depends on the first day.
- Names and numbers for everyone aboard both vessels and anybody nearby who saw it
- Photographs of both vessels, the damage, the hull numbers and the conditions
- Whether a report was made, to which agency, and the incident number
- Charter or rental paperwork, the safety briefing record and any waiver signed
- Marina, fuel dock and dockmaster records placing the vessels and their movements
- What was served aboard, and by whom, where alcohol is in the picture
- Vessel maintenance and inspection records where a mechanical or steering failure is alleged
- Every policy that might respond, including any medical payments cover on a marine policy
Health insurance carries the treatment in the meantime, and what it pays comes back out of any recovery through a lien. That is worth understanding early rather than discovering at the end.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in West Palm 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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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 → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. 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 knew boating was dangerous
- Accepting the ordinary risks of being on the water is not accepting that an operator will run at an unsafe speed, keep no lookout or say nothing before a maneuver. Florida divides the blame rather than barring a claim, so even where a passenger bears some responsibility it reduces a recovery instead of ending it.
- 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.
What a claim can include
Pain, suffering and loss of the ability to enjoy life
The head of loss an early offer prices lowest, because it is the one with no invoice attached.
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.
Why Wolf & Pravato in West Palm Beach
A Palm Beach County boating case is filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach, and the firm’s office on Vista Parkway is in the county rather than across the state. Where witnesses were on a boat that has since left the county, finding them is work that starts the same week or does not succeed.
Board Certification in Civil Trial law is the Bar’s own measure of trial experience, and 861 of Florida’s 109,000-plus lawyers hold it. Richard Pravato has held it since 2004. It is the credential that changes how an adjuster reads a file, because it says the case has somewhere to go if they will not pay it.
Asking costs nothing and there is no fee unless we win. If we look at what happened and think the claim is not worth pursuing, we will say so on the first call instead of signing you up.
West Palm Beach boat accident questions
I was thrown around on a boat but there was no collision. Is that a claim?
Yes. An operator owes passengers a duty of reasonable care in how the vessel is handled, including speed, how wakes are taken and warning passengers before a maneuver. Injuries without any impact between vessels are common and are ordinary negligence claims. The absence of a crash means there is often no report at all, so witness details taken on the day matter more than usual.
The operator was a friend. Do I have to sue him personally?
In practice the claim runs against the insurance rather than the person, which is what the policy exists for, and most of these resolve without anybody being personally out of pocket. It is worth asking about the coverage early: whether there is a vessel policy, whether a homeowner’s policy responds, and what the limits are. Knowing that shapes how the claim is handled and what the conversation with your friend actually needs to be.
Nobody made a report. Have I lost the case?
No, though it changes what it gets built from. The duty to report sits with the operator, not with an injured passenger, and a failure to meet it is the operator’s problem. Vessel damage, marina and fuel records, charter paperwork, phone photographs and the people who were aboard all still exist. They just have to be collected quickly.
Does maritime law mean I cannot sue in Florida?
No, but it can change which rules apply, what damages are available and which deadlines govern. Whether maritime law applies turns on the location and the vessel. Establishing that early is what stops a claim being brought on the wrong footing.
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.
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 2101 Vista Parkway, Suite 4500, West Palm Beach, FL 33411.