Owners of Boat That Caught on Fire in California File Papers Seeking to Avoid Paying Victims’ Families

A dive boat is engulfed in flames after a deadly fire broke out aboard the commercial scuba diving vessel off the Southern California Coast on Sept. 2, 2019. Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP

The owners of the dive boat where 34 people perished in a fire off Southern California filed a lawsuit to head off potentially costly litigation, a move condemned by some observers as disrespectful to the families of the dead.

Truth Aquatics Inc., which owned the Conception, filed the action in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.