Three days after the September fire aboard the dive boat Conception off the coast of California killed 34 people, the boat's owners filed a petition in U.S. District Court to limit their financial liability to an amount equal to the post-fire value of the boat — zero. The filing drew national attention with the media questioning how this could be legal. The answer is an 1851 law known as the Limitation of Liability Act (LOLA), which comes into play in many admiralty cases.
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