[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by Nadia

Thank you for that information. Skip, like I said I want to pick your brain, but your all welcome and free to answer.

Erica is charged with negligence because her behavior/s resulted in Stephanie's death & the injury of another. The Court will refer to the four elements of negligence when making it's decision. One element is that if it were not for Erica's negligent behavior (being under the influence/not keeping proper look-out), Stephanie would not have lost her life, and Nicole would not be injured. Is it fair to say, in Erica's defense, if the weather conditions were indeed: foggy, misty, unusually dark and proven extremely difficult to navigate in even for an even more experienced captain, this accident would have taken place anyway? If I were her Attorney and I said, demonstrated, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this accident took place solely because of the weather, how do you think Prosecution would counter? I wonder if this is an avenue her Attorney will explore, and how he/she would prove abnormally foul weather was to blame? That the accident would have taken place even if she did keep proper look-out and was not under the influence of alcohol? Is it possible one could make this mistake and it truly was just an accident?

Her attorney better have another argument IMO. Cruising about on plane in rain or fog so thick that she couldn't see and react to the island in her path in time to avoid the collision is negligence. That's speed too fast for the prevailing conditions and something an experienced boater should know. Dr Rock's testimony re: the conditions there at that time will be interesting. If the visibility was unlimited then the argument has to be the island was too dark to be seen and Erica thought she knew where she was but was in error. Without GPS or such and w/o visual cues the prosecutor might well argue that no reasonable person would be so sure and so again it becomes negligent operation. In any case it'll all play out in court and no doubt be reported as was the Littlefield case, so we'll see then.