New lawsuits by 2019 SC boat crash passengers name estates of Paul, Maggie Murdaugh
The final two passengers aboard the boat that crashed and killed Mallory Beach in 2019 filed separate personal injury lawsuits Monday against suspended Hampton lawyer Alex Murdaugh and the gas station that sold Paul Murdaugh alcohol before the crash.
Morgan Doughty, a victim of the boat crash — and described in police documents as Paul Murdaugh’s girlfriend at the time — and Miley Altman sued Alex Murdaugh (who owned the boat), Murdaugh’s older son Buster (who gave Paul his ID), the Parker’s gas station (which sold Paul Murdaugh alcohol), the CEO of Parker’s, and Alex Murdaugh’s two brothers in their roles as personal representatives of the estates of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, who were murdered in June 2021 at the Murdaugh family’s rural Colleton County home.
Doughty’s and Altman’s lawsuits, filed by attorney Mark Tinsley, are the sixth and seventh civil actions related to the crash that killed 19-year-old Beach.
Doughty, according to the lawsuit, suffered “permanent scarring and disfigurement.” Altman, according to her suit, suffered “injuries to arm and other parts of her body.”
The two legal actions mean that every person on board the boat that crashed on Feb. 24, 2019, besides Paul Murdaugh, has filed suit against Alex Murdaugh and Parker’s.
Passengers Anthony Cook (Mallory Beach’s boyfriend) and Connor Cook (Miley Altman’s boyfriend) filed separate suits last year, and Mallory Beach’s mother filed a wrongful death suit in 2019.
In 2021, a federal judge ruled that Murdaughs’ insurance provider did not have to cover them in Beach’s wrongful death lawsuit. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance had sued Alex and Buster Murdaugh in 2019, asking to relieve the company from financial responsibilities in Beach’s wrongful death suit.
Another lawsuit filed in December by the family of Mallory Beach accused the Parker’s convenience store CEO and his lawyers of creating a social media campaign intended to bully the Beach family during its wrongful death litigation against the convenience store.
The two latest suits ask for a joint-and-several award against the defendants for actual and punitive damages, costs and attorneys’ fees.
Tinsley did not immediately return a call and text seeking comment Tuesday morning.
Doughty’s and Altman’s suits are the first civil actions to name as defendants the estates of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh. The lawsuits allege that a drunk Paul Murdaugh spoke to his mother on the phone roughly two hours before the crash and she “failed to stop” him from driving the boat.
Maggie Murdaugh also “liked” social posts depicting her son drinking alcohol while underage, the lawsuits say.
The lawsuits allege Maggie and Alex Murdaugh had “actual and constructive knowledge” that Paul Murdaugh “would drink to excess and drive vehicles” such as the family’s boats.
They say Paul Murdaugh “was incompetent, unfit, and/or reckless based on his almost constant consumption of alcohol” and that this behavior was “condoned, encouraged and facilitated” by his parents, including on the morning of the boat crash.
The allegations against the Parker’s gas station and Buster Murdaugh are similar to those laid out in previous lawsuits filed by Tinsley. The latest lawsuits say that Parker’s illegally sold alcohol to the underage Paul Murdaugh prior to the crash and should have known that the ID he used was not his.
Parker’s should have known that the way it trains its employees “regarding the identification of restricted alcohol sales was deficient,” the lawsuits say.
Paul Murdaugh, among the allegations in the lawsuits, operated the boat while under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicating substances, failed to take “evasive action” to avoid the crash and refused to stop the boat at the passengers’ request so they could safely get off.
All of the defendants, the lawsuits allege, were negligent in the boat crash.
The boat crash caused Doughty to suffer “injuries to her hand, finger and other parts of her body.”
Both Doughty and Altman spent money for medical services and lost wages due to the crash, the lawsuits say.
Paul Murdaugh, 19 at the time, was allegedly driving the boat while drunk when it crashed into a bridge near Parris Island, killing Beach. He was facing trial on three felony charges related to the crash when he and his mother were found murdered last spring.
The events of the boat crash are well known in the Lowcountry. The boat crash and the murders of Paul and Maggie thrust the prominent Murdaughs, whose family served as top elected prosecutors for more than eight decades, into the international spotlight.
Documents released by police last year offer a timeline of events from late afternoon, when Murdaugh purchased alcohol at a local gas station, to 1 a.m. shots at a Beaufort waterfront bar, to Beach’s tragic death.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 10:36 AM.
