There have been numerous claims put forth against the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, the parent company of the White Star Line which run the Titanic. However, in the end laws and class differences around the time protected the company from paying nearly as much in damages as we would expect when something like this would happen in the modern system.

Back then there was a law limiting the liability of Ship-Owners protecting them from overly demanding claims for compensation. With this law in place, they were not at all liable for loss of life, property, or injury in case of an unavoidable accident. And in cases in which the blame could be placed on clear errors by crew or captain, their liablity was limited to total of passenger fares, the amount paid for the transport of cargo, and salavage materials recovered from the wrek. According to this, all the survivors and the families of the 1517 Dead were entitled to were about $91,805, still divided up by what was cargo, materials from the wreck and passenger fares, but only if it could be prooven that it was the crew's fault. The White Star Line's parent company was aware of this law and petitioned to have the court confirm that the sinking of the Titanic was an unavoidable accident, and that none of their crew was responsible, thus, they would not have to pay any form of compensation at all.

This left the victims in the position that the only way to get any form of compensation was to proof that the Captain and Crew members were to blame for the sinking. The main argument for their case was that, despite receiving multiple ice warnings during the days previous to the sinking, the ship had remained on course, kept their speed the same, and had not taken any precautions to avoid the threat. In addition, they argued that the White Star line had neglected to train their crew properly for emergencies and that many more people could have been rescued if not for that, and that the Company's managing director, Ismay, was on board not doing his duty to make decisions to protect people. All of that proofing that in this case the Company would need to take full blame and could not be protected by the law of limited liability.

After the Ocean Steam Navigation Company started their petition to be cleared of any liablity, several notes calling for witnesses and claimants were posted in the New York times over the duration of four months, leading to Hundreds of claims for compensation and, later, a giant amount of witness statements and documentations. Eventually these claims were devided in four groups, loss of Life, Loss of Property, Los of Life and Property, and Injury and Loss of Property; the last post leading to the abovementioned number of quiet brutal witness statements by survivors. All of these claims from all over the world together called for a total amount of $16,604,731.63, far appart from what the Ship's owners would have needed to pay worst case even if liable under the laws back then.

During this four month period and after, a lot about the tragic story became recorded by court officials for this case and also found their way into numerous news papers. The last moments of the ship could be reconstructed in detail due to these witness statements, as well as, at least to some extend, the behavior of Captain and Crew. Testimony of witnesses and relatives who had lost family members continued well into the summer of 1915, while negotiations for settlements were carried on with the victims and relatives alongside the collection of evidence. By December of 1915 almost all claimants settled for a combined amount of just §664,000 which was supposed to be divided according to loss among the combined group of claimants. Despite this settlement, the case was finally decided via a decree in July 1916 which stated that the Company was not liable for any loss, damage, injury, destruction, or fatalities.

As you see, there wasn't much of a compensation, and it's not really recorded how much the individual clamiants got in the settlements. The differences between classes, however, was very evident in the amounts the different people were calling for in compensations and might be a good orientation how the settlement amount might have been split up in the end; a first class passenger, for example, filed a flaim for $177,352.75 in items lost, while there were also people who had lost just about everything, and named their entire possessions at just $91,05.

Now, in regards to loss of life we have an example of a businessman's wife who sued for the amount of $510.000 in compensation for the loss of her husband, while the families of some of the musicians who, as witness statements showed, accompanied the sinking almost to the end with music, got billed the money for their uniforms. After all, the dead muscians could not pay them off or return then.

So you see, there was certainly no deal along the lines of "free passage for life". Class differences and the laws created a scenario that was rather different from nowadays.

As for the survivors, many kept quiet and never talked another word over their trauma again in the public over the years. Others invested themsevles into talking about their experiences during the later years of life, and the final few willing to take part even were included in documentations and the making of some films. If you want to know more, there's an actual online encyclopedia dedicated to the biographies of the 712 survivors. This page might provide you with more answers.

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