Episode Details

This week, your hosts Steve Lowry and Yvonne Godfrey interview Don Fountain of Clark, Fountain, La Vista, Prather & Littky-Rubin (https://www.clarkfountain.com/) and Drew Ashby of Ashby Thelen & Lowry (https://www.atllaw.com/). 

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Episode Details:

Don Fountain of Clark, Fountain, La Vista, Prather & Littky-Rubin and Drew Ashby of Ashby Thelen & Lowry discuss how they successfully represented the grieving parents of a 7-year-old boy who tragically died in an accident involving a defective boat design on Lake Burton in Georgia. On July 17, 2014, Ryan Batchelder was wearing a life jacket and sitting in the bow seating compartment in the front nose of a rented 2000 Malibu Response LC open bow ski boat when he was washed overboard as the boat circled, crossing its own wake and taking on water in a phenomenon known as "bow swamping." As the front of the boat filled with water, the driver put the boat in reverse to raise it to surface level, but the unguarded propeller sucked Ryan in, resulting in severe blood loss and fatal drowning. Don Fountain and Drew Ashby, along with their colleagues, took the case to trial for the Batchelder family to hold accountable the three entities involved in making boats under the name "Malibu Boats," which is the largest ski boat manufacturer in the world. Together, Don and Drew demonstrated that Malibu Boats West, Inc. and Malibu Boats LLC were negligent for failing to provide warnings concerning the bow swamping hazard associated with the open bow boat. In August 2021, a Rabun County, Georgia jury apportioned fault to Malibu Boats West, Inc., Malibu Boats, LLC and the boat driver for Ryan's wrongful death, awarding $80 million in compensatory damages and $120 million in punitive damages. The jury determined that because the Malibu defendants knew about the bow swamping hazard and made the conscious decision not to warn boat owners and users, punitive damages were also warranted, making this the largest pain and suffering wrongful death verdict in Georgia history.

Click Here to Read/Download the Complete Trial Documents

Guest Bios:

Donald Fountain:

Donald R. Fountain, Jr. is nationally recognized as a top trial attorney and is known for his work around the country for successfully representing catastrophically injured clients during some of the most traumatic and transformational times in their lives. For twenty-five years, Don has been a double board-certified civil trial lawyer by both the state and national boards and has twice been named “Lawyer of the Year” in plaintiff product liability litigation by Best Lawyers in America®, a prestigious award that was published in the Miami Herald and The Wall Street Journal.

During his more than 30 years as a Florida Personal Injury Lawyer, Don has handled cases in more than 25 states and has tried virtually every kind of case – typical and atypical – from a cruise ship hitting an iceberg in Alaska to the mishandling of human remains by a regional funeral home chain. He frequently works on cases across the country related to automotive products liability, tire defects, consumer product defects, road design defects, construction defects, boating and locomotive accidents, aviation liability, legal malpractice, fires and vehicle/truck accidents. Don has earned hundreds of seven and eight figure verdicts and settlements totaling more than $800 million for his clients throughout Florida and the United Stat