OceanGate Lawsuit: Wrongful Death, Waivers, and Why No Charges

The main OceanGate lawsuit is a wrongful death case filed in August 2024 by the estate of French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of five people killed in the June 2023 implosion of the Titan submersible on a dive to the Titanic wreck. The suit seeks more than $50 million from OceanGate Inc., the estate of CEO Stockton Rush, and several contractors, and it is still active in King County Superior Court in Washington state as of mid-2026. No criminal charges have been filed against anyone connected to the disaster.¹

Who Sued, and What They Allege

The complaint was filed on August 6, 2024, by attorneys from the Buzbee Law Firm and Schecter, Shaffer & Harris on behalf of Richard Ortoli, administrator of Nargeolet’s estate.¹ It names six defendants:

OceanGate Inc., the company that operated the Titan.
The estate of Richard Stockton Rush III, the OceanGate co-founder and CEO who died in the implosion. His widow, Wendy Weil Rush, is identified as personal representative.
Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s former director of engineering, who designed the vessel’s viewport.
Hydrospace Group, manufacturer of the acrylic viewport.
Janicki Industries, involved in the vessel’s design and manufacturing.
Electroimpact Inc., which laid the carbon fibers for the Titan’s second hull.²

The claims are wrongful death, negligence, and gross negligence, pleaded under general admiralty law and the Jones Act. The complaint alleges OceanGate and Rush “purposely concealed” design flaws in the carbon fiber hull and misled Nargeolet about the vessel’s safety.¹ It says Rush falsely represented that OceanGate was working with Boeing and the University of Washington for professional oversight, and that the carbon fiber in the hull was purchased “at a big discount from Boeing because it was past its shelf life.”³ The estate also alleges the crew suffered “terror and mental anguish” as they became aware of “irreversible failures” before the implosion, pointing to evidence that the Titan tried to abort the dive by dropping weights about 90 minutes into the descent.⁴

The families of the other victims — British adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada and Suleman Dawood — have not filed publicly reported lawsuits.⁵

Where the Case Stands

The case has spent most of its life so far on procedural fights. Janicki Industries moved to remove it to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on diversity grounds. The Nargeolet estate argued Janicki had run a “snap” removal before any defendant was served. In February 2025, Judge Lauren King remanded the case to King County Superior Court, finding it “was not removable under the law.” She declined to award attorney’s fees, calling Janicki’s position “objectively reasonable.”⁶

Stockton Rush’s estate has separately moved to exit the case, arguing improper venue.⁷ No public ruling on that motion has been reported as of mid-2026.

By June 2026, discovery had become the flashpoint. OceanGate filed a motion accusing the Nargeolet estate of withholding critical documents it had been seeking for nearly a year.⁸ The court’s ruling on that dispute has not been publicly reported. An initial trial date had been set for August 2025 in earlier filings,⁹ but given the ongoing fights over documents and venue, the case is not close to resolution.

Do the Liability Waivers Block the Suit?

Every Titan passenger signed a lengthy waiver. The document reportedly mentioned the possibility of death three times on the first page alone, required passengers to acknowledge risks including “physical injury, disability, emotional trauma and death,” and noted that the vessel was experimental and built with materials not widely used for manned submersibles.¹⁰

Legal experts have widely questioned whether those waivers would survive a gross negligence claim. Courts may reject waivers when evidence shows hazards were not fully disclosed or the operator knowingly used a vessel unsuitable for the dive.¹¹ The Nargeolet complaint attacks the waiver head-on, calling it “insufficient and ineffective” against gross negligence and Rush’s alleged misrepresentations.²

Jurisdiction is its own thicket. The waiver specifies Bahamian law, because OceanGate Expeditions, Ltd. was registered in the Bahamas. But OceanGate was based in Everett, Washington, the Titan was built in the United States, and the contracts were likely signed there, which is why the case sits in Washington state court. The implosion happened in international waters, which could bring in the Death on the High Seas Act. That federal statute limits damages to the financial support the deceased would have provided to survivors and bars recovery for pain and suffering, a limit that would sharply reduce what the estate could ultimately collect.¹²

Why There Are No Criminal Charges

No individual or entity has been criminally charged in connection with the Titan implosion.¹³ The Department of Justice has reportedly been examining OceanGate’s financial practices, but no subpoenas, indictments, or other formal actions have been publicly disclosed.

The most direct statement on criminal exposure came from the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, which released its 335-page final report on August 5, 2025 and concluded all five deaths were preventable.¹⁴ The report traced the implosion to OceanGate’s “inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process,” described the company’s internal culture as “toxic,” and said Rush used intimidation and firings to silence safety concerns while misrepresenting the vessel as “indestructible.” He also designated paying passengers as “mission specialists” to sidestep rules that would have applied to a commercial passenger operation.¹⁵ Investigators wrote that had Rush survived, they would have recommended the Justice Department pursue manslaughter charges against him.¹⁶

Publication of that report was itself delayed. Observers have noted that the firing of Admiral Linda Lee Fagan in January 2025 stalled the sign-off process, and the report’s findings are the kind of official determination that typically precedes further enforcement action.¹³

OceanGate’s Current Status

OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations immediately after the disaster and has permanently ceased operations.¹⁴ Its website carries no contact information.¹⁷ The company has not filed for bankruptcy, according to available reporting, and remains an active party in the Washington litigation as of June 2026.⁸ Whether meaningful assets remain to satisfy any eventual judgment is an open question, and one the Nargeolet case will eventually force into the open.

1
Courthouse News Service. OceanGate Hit With $50M Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over Submersible Implosion
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Courthouse News Service. OceanGate Wrongful Death Complaint
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The New York Times. OceanGate Titan Submersible Titanic Lawsuit
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ABC 33/40. Family of Man Who Died in Titan Sub Implosion Seeks $50M in Wrongful Death Lawsuit
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ABC News. Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed Titan Submersible Implosion
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Newsweek. OceanGate Submarine Titan Implosion Victims Nargeolet Lawsuit
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Law360. Stockton Rush Estate Seeks to Exit OceanGate Death Suit
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Law360. OceanGate Claims Explorer’s Estate Withholding Critical Docs
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Business Insider. French Explorer Estate Filed $50M Lawsuit OceanGate Titan Submersible Rush
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WTNH. What Role Will Liability Waivers Play in the Aftermath of the Titan Sub Tragedy
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Reuters. Titanic Sub Victims Families Could Still Sue Despite Liability Waivers
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Bloomberg Law. Doomed Submersible Waivers Not Enough to Ward Off Lawsuits
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Netflix Tudum. Titan The OceanGate Disaster Case Stockton Rush
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CNN. Titan Submersible Implosion US Coast Guard Report
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U.S. Coast Guard. TITAN Marine Board of Investigation Report
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ABC News. Coast Guard OceanGate Titan Submersible Report Implosion
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NBC News. Estate of French Explorer Died Titan Submersible Sues OceanGate