PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles family has filed two lawsuits aimed at the Port of Port Angeles, Port Angeles Marine and San Juan Excursions for not providing safety equipment they say could have kept their teenage son from falling and being paralyzed.
While an employee of San Juan Excursions, a company that leads whale watching tours, Alex Ralston, now 18, was severely injured on March 28, 2004, while working on a boat that was moored at the Port of Port Angeles Boat Haven marina.
Ralston, then a student at Port Angeles High School, fell 8.5 feet from the boat onto a dock, landing on his head.
Ralston sustained multiple injuries from the fall, leaving him with hearing loss and other ailments, and confined to a wheelchair.
Negligence alleged
A lawsuit against the Port and Port Angeles Marine filed Tuesday in Clallam County Superior Court by Alex Ralston and his parents, John and Gail Ralston, alleges both entities were negligent by not forcing the boat owner, San Juan Excursions, to provide safety equipment on a part of the boat that had its hand railings removed.
Another lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Tacoma in May, also names the tour company as negligent.
The Ralston’s attorney, Robert Kraft of Seattle, would not say how much the Ralston’s are asking for, nor would he provide further comment on the case.
Documents filed with Clallam County Superior Court say that Alex’s injuries require expensive equipment and accommodations, including 24-hour attendant care.
The accident and Ralston’s injuries also caused the loss of “services, support, love, companionship and a destruction of the parent-child relationship,” the lawsuit says.
John Ralston was reached by phone Thursday, but declined to comment.
The attorney for the Port of Port Angeles, Mike Barcott of Seattle, said he expects the Ralstons will ask for an eight-figure award.
Motion to dismiss Port
In the next 60 to 90 days, Barcott said he will file a motion to dismiss the Port from the case.
He believes the Port was named because “the plaintiff’s lawyer is looking for deeper pockets than the tour company.”
Barcott said there is no precedent for making the wharf owner responsible for an injury on a boat.
He called it “an unprecedented stretch of the law.”
Representatives from Port Angeles Marine, which runs Boat Haven marina, were not available for comment.
San Juan Excursions is a whale watching company based out of Friday Harbor. The company’s owner, Roger Hoff, is related to the Ralstons by marriage, and believes he is being “demonized.”
Hoff said that although the injuries Alex sustained were tragic, he had been hired as a family favor to do maintenance on the 65-foot vessel.