I've heard everything now!

Katrina Rescuer Sued By Boat Owner

POSTED: 2:16 pm MDT August 26, 2006

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NEW ORLEANS -- A lot of people called Mark Morice a hero.

John M. Lyons Jr. calls him a defendant.

Morice commandeered Lyons' boat during the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina and said he rescued more than 200 people. Included in that number was Irving Gordon, a 93-year-old dialysis patient who Morice carried from his flooded home, placed in the boat and rescued.




 

"I don't know where we would be today if it weren't for him," Molly Gordon, Gordon's wife of 65 years, said Friday.

But Lyons sued Morice for taking his boat without permission and not returning it.

The lawsuit contends that Lyons suffered his own distress, in the form of "grief, mental anguish, embarrassment and suffering . . . due to the removal of the boat," as well as its replacement costs.

E. Ronald Mills, Lyons' lawyer, who filed the suit in 24th Judicial District Court in Jefferson Parish earlier this month, on Friday accused Morice of "hubris."

Morice made no attempt to return the boat, Mills said, and it remains missing.

The Friday after the storm, Morice said, he left the city briefly to recover from a week of trolling the city's streets, "living in fear and sleeping with a shotgun." That day, after delivering 15 people to dry ground, Morice said he parked the boat and left it for other rescuers to use. Given the atmosphere at the time, returning the boat "was the farthest thing from my mind," he said.

Reacting to the suit, Morice and his attorney, Joseph A. Marino III, displayed photographs and showed video Morice took, which showed desperate high-water scenes accompanied by a bone-chilling soundtrack of screams and pounding, apparently from people trapped inside attics.

Lyons' boat, an 18-foot, 1998-model 180 Sea Sport, was one of three Morice said he commandeered after water started rising. Morice said one of the other boat owners told him he was glad Morice had been able to hot-wire his boat - Morice said he actually got instructions on how to do it from Yamaha customer service-- and the other boat owner apparently has not complained.

Morice tried to find a friend's boat to take, but nothing he found was seaworthy or already in use. Then he noticed two boats that appeared usable and used bolt cutters to cut gate locks and check them out. Morice said he took Lyons' because the keys were in the ignition. He said he didn't know who owned it.

Sometime in September or October, Morice returned to the home and spoke to Lyons' wife, he said, explaining why he had taken their boat. He later e-mailed the Lyons a picture of him using the boat to rescue people.

In January, he received a letter from Mills noting that the Lyons had received less than half the replacement value of the boat and its motor from their insurance. The letter asked Morice for $12,000 to "settle this matter."

Morice said he thought the letter was "a joke" and paid little attention to it until this month, when the lawsuit was filed.

The lawsuit accuses Morice of taking the boat "solely to promote himself and his law practice." Although he appeared in several newspapers in the storm's aftermath, Morice said he never sought the publicity.

Mills said Morice could have been more responsible when he took the Lyons' boat.

"If I felt I had to take the boat I would have at least left a note," Mills said.

Morice's reaction? "Next time there's a major storm or natural disaster and I'm called to save lives, I'll try to remember to bring a pen and paper," he said.