A state Superior Court judge has ruled against the family of a boy who drowned at Port Chilkoot Dock in May 2010 and sued the Haines Borough for negligence.
Larry and Chetra Williamson had sought $1 million, saying the municipality demonstrated gross negligence, including by not posting hazard signs at the popular swimming beach.
In granting summary judgment Monday, Judge Phillip Pallenberg ruled that the borough had no duty to warn Andrew Williamson, 14, about the risk of swimming in cold Alaska waters, and that the Williamsons did not show the dock’s lightering float was an attractive nuisance.
“They claim that the absence of warning signs renders this dock an attractive nuisance. Under this theory, though, every dock is an attractive nuisance,” Pallenberg wrote. Attractive nuisance doesn’t apply where the risk a condition presents is obvious even to children, he wrote.
“Here the risks associated with swimming in cold Alaskan waters would be obvious to any reasonable 14-year-old, especially since the undisputed evidence is that Andrew was repeatedly warned by his parents of the danger and took safety classes in school,” he wrote.
The case was scheduled to go to trial Sept. 24.
Larry Williamson said this week he was disappointed to not get his day in court, and that the case was about justice for his son, not money.
“We never wanted a dime out of the borough, ever. All we wanted was a legitimate investigation of what happened to our son. That’s what the Haines Borough and the police department refused to do. All we asked for was a proper investigation and borough consideration of safety issues at the beach, because somebody died there,” Williamson said.
Specifically, Williamson said borough police never conducted thorough interviews with two youths accompanying his son when he drowned, and that the investigation was limited to a brief summary by the officer who responded to the call.
The trio left from the beach. One reached the lightering float; the other turned back to shore. Andrew, known to be not a strong swimmer, went under within view of crowds at the beach enjoying a warm Saturday afternoon.
Greg Henrikson of the Anchorage law firm of Walker & Eakes wrote the appeal for summary judgment. He said the borough feels that Williamson’s death was a “heartbreaking tragedy” but that Alaska case law came down “close to on point” with the borough’s assertion that it had no duty to warn Williamson of risk.
Henrikson said no decision has been made about legal fees, but that typically in such cases the prevailing party gets at least a portion of its legal fees and associated costs paid by the losing side. He said he didn’t know how much the case has cost the borough, but said it would have been significantly more had the case gone to a jury trial.
Williamson said he’d sought a non-monetary resolution of the matter with the borough, but officials were nonresponsive.