Butte County Jury Awards $30.9 Million After MasterCraft Boat Bows Under and Propeller Strikes Passenger

On July 9, 2006, Niki Bell was one of roughly 18 to 20 people aboard a MasterCraft X45 on Lake Oroville in northern California. The driver slowed to retrieve a fallen wakeboarder and began a gentle turn at three to five miles per hour. As the boat turned, the bow submerged. Bell and fellow passenger Bethany Wallenburg (later Mercer) were thrown into the water and directly into the spinning propeller.

Bell, then 23 and a California State University Chico student, suffered multiple skull fractures, permanent damage to her frontal lobe, and the complete loss of her left eye. She faces lifelong medical care. Wallenburg sustained propeller lacerations to her back, elbow, and leg.

The plaintiffs, represented by Roger Dreyer of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora, argued the X45 was the product of a flawed design process. MasterCraft had combined hull elements from two different boat models without conducting capacity testing or a formal risk assessment. The large bow area encouraged overcrowding, and an anchor-slot opening allowed water to flood the bow when weight concentrated at the front. The boat was rated for 18 occupants yet had never been tested with a full passenger load before it reached consumers.

The trial ran 49 days. The defense maintained the accident resulted from reckless operation and that the X45 met applicable regulatory standards. The jury disagreed. After more than two days of deliberations, jurors assigned 80 percent of the fault to MasterCraft for the defective design and 20 percent to boat operator Jerry Montz, who had consumed alcohol before taking the helm.

On June 7 and 8, 2011, the jury returned a verdict of $30.9 million for Bell and $530,688 for Wallenburg. The trial court denied MasterCraft's motion for a new trial. MasterCraft filed a notice of appeal on September 14, 2011, with the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento. No publicly documented reduction or reversal of the verdict has been identified in available sources.