A 173-year-old law for wooden ships could complicate rebuilding in Baltimore

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Limitation_of_Liability_Act_of_1851" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Limitation_of_Liability_Act_of...</a><p>(from the wiki page)<p>&gt; at the time, shipowners were subject to loss from events beyond their control such as storms and pirates, so the Act was designed to limit the shipowners&#x27; liability to the value of the vessel.<p>But it&#x27;s predicated on &quot;the owner can prove it lacked knowledge of the problem beforehand&quot;. Losing power a few times before the impact doesn&#x27;t bode well there.

While the law was originally written 173 years ago, it is well known and has been amended many times since then to keep it up to date as per the current intents of the current legislature. While one can argue that the law should be abolished or amended further, it is clearly not some outdated, forgotten law.

The act limits the liability of the ship&#x27;s owner during an accident to the post-crash value of the ship. So, if you crash a ship you only have to pay, essentially, &quot;the rest of the ship.&quot;<p>It seems like the materials with which a ship is made is irrelevant to this law, and perhaps even to its intent. The law was passed as a diuretic for the maritime shipping industry, lowering the risk in order to spur economic activity. That remains true, even for steel ships.

So...<p>A pre-Civil-War law for maritime accidents is still current, and that&#x27;s now a gigantic <i>and obvious</i> problem.<p>The U.S. Capital, where Congress originally made that law, and still makes the laws, is 40 miles away by road.<p>Any bets on Congress both being competent enough to fix their law, and giving a sh*t enough to actually do that?

So they rebuild the bridge with taxpayer money. And spend the next 20 years suing Maesk for the cost. And the Feds eventually lose.<p>How is this a complication? The Federal government has no issue spending billions and billions of future tax payers taxes.