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Archive for OMC

Boat Propeller Guard Product Liability Defense Intro Vol1

In the mid to late 1980’s Mercury Marine, a Brunswick Corporation, and Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) were facing a large number of boat propeller guard product liability / product defect lawsuits. Several of those lawsuits related to kill switches not being installed. This post is the second of a series of five posts announcing the […]

Boat Propeller Guard Product Liability Defense

We have completed a major project in which we studied the period in which Mercury Marine and Outboard Marine Corporation developed their legal defense against the use of boat propeller guards on recreational boats. This post is the first of five on this topic. Their defense is based on three documents which they helped create: […]

Underwater Head Impact Propeller Guard report Volume3

This post is the fourth of a series of five posts covering the boating industry’s legal defense. Specifically, their legal defense against boat propeller guard product liability / product defect lawsuits. It focuses on our review of the 1990 underwater testing of a propeller guard impacting an anthropomorphic dummy’s head. The testing was performed at […]

Underwater Leg Impact Propeller Guard report Volume4

This post is the fifth of a series of five posts covering the boating industry’s legal defense. Specifically, their legal defense against boat propeller guard product liability / product defect lawsuits. It focuses on our review of the 1990 underwater testing of a propeller guard impacting cadaver legs. The testing was performed at State University […]

Boating Industry Provides Misleading Propeller Accident Statistics

The boating industry has a long history of misleading the public and authorities by providing recreational boat propeller accident counts much lower than the official accident statistics provided by the U.S. Coast Guard. Several of these instances result from the industry falsely using Event 1 only statistics to represent the total number of propeller accidents, […]

Mercury Marine’s & OMC’s Propeller Guard Development $

The two major U.S. recreational marine drive companies of the past many years: Brunswick / Mercury Marine and Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) have been in the forefront of “debunking” propeller guards in court since the 1970’s. In this post we estimate their total expenses in developing propeller guards designed to protect people at less than […]

History of Boat Propeller Safety Issues & the Propeller Safety Movement

We have long considered trying to create a timeline of recreational boat propeller safety issues, accidents, legal cases, and the propeller safety movement. As a preparatory effort to any future efforts at documenting the history of propeller safety, we created, “A History of Recreational Boat Propeller Safety Issues and the Propeller Safety Movement” We recognize […]

Mercury Marine / Dick Snyder 1989 Propeller Guard

Dick Snyder, Mercury Marine’s expert witness in propeller guard cases, designed a propeller guard back in 1989. Placing the event in historical perspective, this was a very eventful time. The U.S. Coast Guard NBSAC Propeller Guard Subcommittee was formed on May 11, 1988, met twice more in 1988, met in May of 1989, then delivered […]

Michael Hinton v. Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) propeller accident trial

Michael Hinton was trying to retrieve his son’s hat which had blown into the water on September 10, 2000. He was on the swim deck, crouched, hanging onto the swim ladder and getting ready to reach for the hat. The swim ladder was anchored to the transom by a nylon strap through a grommet. The […]

Propeller Fatality Cap and Trade With a Tax On Over Cap Fatalities

We propose a tax on fatal boat propeller accidents similar to a tax on pollution as a means of encouraging marine drive companies to prevent propeller injuries. The U.S. Coast Guard Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking surrounding propeller and carbon monoxide safety (USCG-2011-0497) asked for public comments on possible strategies to reduce propeller injuries. Thinking […]