The Baltimore bridge collapse probably caused billions in damages. Who owes what may come down to ancient laws from Greece

The massive cargo ship crash into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday will likely lead to billions of dollars in liability damages. But lawyers, legislators and business owners will need to dust off their history books to figure out who owes what.

The massive cargo ship crash that destroyed the Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday will probably cost various shipping companies and insurers billions of dollars in damages. But lawyers, legislators and business owners will need to turn to one of the oldest subjects of law to figure out who owes what. That’s because it all comes down to maritime law – an ancient, often seemingly eccentric legal field that still relies on some precedents set in the Iron Age. “Maritime law is steeped in antiquity. it goes back to the Phoenicians, it goes back to the Greeks,” Sean Pribyl, a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight, said in an interview with CNN. Maritime law is rooted in the need to settle disputes and enforce rules between different peoples, even before there was the concept of countries with definitive laws. “It’s been thousands of years of vessels going to sea and carrying cargo or passengers. Over centuries and centuries of practice, maritime law developed its own codes, and those were enshrined in more recent international conventions and then domestic laws as well around the world,” said Pribyl. From ancient Mediterranean islands to the Titanic to longshoremen on the Brooklyn docks, CNN looked into some of the historic cases that may become relevant as the ramifications of this deadly and costly crash come to light.