[alnick]

He should have returned the boat after using it.

The article says he passed it on to other rescuers.

Furthermore, with God knows how many feet of water they were dealing with by the end of rescue operations, it was probably impossible to locate the owner's land or to secure the boat if they could.

[cripplecreek]

Lyons should sue the city if anything. Those people wouldn't have needed rescue if the city hadn't left the yellow submarines parked at the bottom of lake New Orleans to begin with.

[bwteim]

We can only excpert NOLA.com, Here's some background

"...Morice returned .. [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.

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 ... "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.

Excerpted from:

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1156572434292430.xml&coll=1&thispage=2

[P-40]

it was probably impossible to locate the owner's land or to secure the boat if they could.

Once the disaster was over it would have been a small matter to find the owner and compensate him...and if the boat was used in the rescue operations, the city should pay. I suspect much of the lawsuit is over the city not wanting to pay.