$1.25 Million Awarded In Deaths Of Lobstermen

$1.25 Million Awarded In Deaths Of Lobstermen
By The Associated Press
The New York Times
August 13, 1985

BOSTON, Aug. 12 (AP) - A Federal district judge today ordered the Government to pay $1.25 million to the families of three lobstermen who were lost at sea in a storm that the National Weather Service had not predicted.

The award by Judge Joseph Tauro came eight months after he had ruled that the weather service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were liable for the deaths by not repairing a weather buoy for three months.

Judge Tauro said that if the buoy's instruments had been working it might have helped the service predict the storm in 1980 that, according to trial testimony, produced 60-foot waves and 100 mile-per-hour winds and took the fishermen by surprise.

Government Plans an Appeal

Don Witten, a weather service spokesman, said the decision would be appealed.

Honour Brown Ferris, whose husband, Gary Brown, was among the missing men, said, "All I'm hoping for really is that the judge's decision stands and it stays the way it is because I'm just worried that it will happen to someone else."

Mrs. Ferris, who has remarried since the incident, was one of the relatives who sued for a total of $3.2 million.

Awards Based on Earnings

Gary Brown, 25, of Plymouth, William Garnos, 30, of Beverly, David Berry, 20, of Marblehead, and Robert Thayer, 22, of Hamilton, are presumed to have died on Nov. 22, 1980. Mr. Thayer's death was not cited in the suit.

The men had set out from Cape Cod in fair weather on Nov. 21 for a week of lobstering on Georges Bank, a rich fishing area 100 miles off the Massachusetts coast.

Judge Tauro awarded $783,588 to Mrs. Ferris, including $94,331 for Mr. Brown's 4-year-old daughter, Cary Brown. Mrs. Ferris was pregnant with the girl when Mr. Brown died.

The judge also awarded $412,166 to Mr. Garnos's parents, Angelo and Helen Garnos, and $59,651 to Mr. Berry's father, George Berry.

The varying amounts of the awards reflected in the earning potential of the victims had they lived.

David Hutchinson, a Justice Department attorney who represented the weather agency, called the $59,651 included in the awards to each of the parties as compensation for pain and suffering "an unusual amount."

Mr. Hutchinson had argued that the weather service provides forecasts as a public service and has no liability if the forecasts turn out to be wrong. He also had claimed that the storm came up so quickly that it could not have been predicted when the fishermen set out.

The judge ruled that the service had been unable to get a complete picture of the weather on Georges Bank because of malfunctioning wind sensors on a key weather buoy.