Widows of four Mass. fishermen lose appeal in 1994 boat sinking

BOSTON – Widows of four fishermen who died in the 1994 sinking of a fishing boat off Cape Cod lost a bid for an additional $166,000 in interest on their $1 million award when the state Appeals Court ruled against them Tuesday.

The Italian Gold, which was based in Gloucester, sank in stormy seas on Sept. 5, 1994, near Georges Bank about 100 miles off Cape Cod.

A jury awarded a total of $1 million to the four widows in 2001. But a judge set aside the award, ruling that admiralty law did not permit the case to be decided by a jury. The Supreme Judicial Court reinstated the $1 million judgment in 2004.

The widows argued before the Appeals Court that they should receive 8.14 percent interest – at a rate calculated under state law – for the two-year period from 2004 until when the judgment was actually paid in 2006.

But Rose’s Oil Service, a Gloucester company that was found to be 50 percent responsible for the ship’s sinking because it performed faulty repairs on the 78-foot steel trawler, said the federal post-judgment interest rate of 2.07 percent should apply for that two-year period.

The Appeals Court sided with Rose’s Oil Service.

Stephen Ouellette, an attorney who represented Maria Carrapichosa, the widow of crewman Manuel Carrapichosa, said that because the men died outside of state waters, the widows had to sue under the federal Death on the High Seas Act, which only allowed them to recover economic damages from the lost income of their husbands.

If they had died in Massachusetts waters, he said, their survivors could have sued under the state’s wrongful death law, which would have allowed them to recover for loss of companionship and pain and suffering.

“You look at these guys who toil on the ocean and if you die more than three miles out, your recovery is remarkably different from someone who dies on the shore, and then you nickel and dime them on the interest,” Ouellette said.

The widows received a total of about $54,000 in interest under the federal interest rate, but would have received about $220,000 if the Appeals Court had applied the state interest rate.

Joseph Abromovitz, an attorney who represented two of the widows, said he argued that the higher interest rate under state law should be used because the sinking of the Italian Gold was not a classic maritime case governed by federal maritime laws, but more akin to an auto repair shop being sued for doing a poor job on repairs to a car.

“We said there was nothing that was typically maritime in nature about the facts of the incident to begin with … so we should have been able to say state law applies,” Abromovitz said.

The Appeals Court cited a 1991 ruling by the SJC that said in maritime cases courts should follow the federal statute in assessing post-judgment interest.

Attorneys for Rose’s Oil Service did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday.

Ouellette said attorneys for the widows may appeal the ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court.

The men who died were: Nicholas Curcuru, the ship’s captain; and Peter Giovinco, Manuel Carrapichosa and Salvatore Curcuru, no relation to Nicholas.