Every summer since the early 2000s, great white sharks have returned to the waters off the Outer Cape. They come for the grey seals, whose population has rebounded dramatically since the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 ended the commercial hunting that had kept them scarce for decades. The sharks follow the seals, and the seals follow the beaches. An estimated 800 or more great whites now make the seasonal migration north to Massachusetts each year, arriving in May and departing by late October, with peak activity in July and August, the height of tourist season.
Most summers pass without a serious incident. But the risk is real, the legal questions surrounding it are complicated, and if you or a family member is seriously injured in the water on Cape Cod, understanding who, if anyone, bears legal responsibility matters.
A Brief History of Shark Attacks on Cape Cod
Shark attacks in Massachusetts are rare but not unprecedented. The confirmed incidents on record include a 1936 attack near Mattapoisett, thought to involve a bull shark, that killed 16-year-old Joseph Troy Jr., and an exploratory attack in July 1996 off Cold Storage Beach in Truro when a man collecting starfish was bitten by a blue shark. In July 2012, Chris Myers was attacked by an 8-to-9-foot great white while bodysurfing at Ballston Beach in Truro and sustained nerve and tendon damage, but survived. In August 2017, paddleboarder Cleveland Bigelow III was knocked off his board by a great white off Marconi Beach in Wellfleet but was uninjured.
Then, on September 15, 2018, 26-year-old Arthur Medici of Revere was attacked by a great white shark while boogieboarding off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet. He died at Cape Cod Hospital. It was the first shark fatality in Massachusetts since 1936 and the first confirmed great white shark fatality in the state’s recorded history. The beach had been closed for shark sightings roughly 25 times that summer alone, more than double the previous annual average. Lifeguards were no longer on duty for the season when the attack occurred.
Since 2018 there have been no confirmed fatalities, and relatively few attacks, a reflection both of improved public awareness and the genuinely low statistical probability of an encounter. But with an estimated 800 or more sharks in Massachusetts waters each summer and millions of beachgoers on the Cape, the question of legal liability is not purely academic.
Can You Sue a Town for a Shark Attack?
This is where the law gets complicated, and where understanding the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act becomes directly relevant to anyone using a town-managed beach.
Most Cape Cod beaches are either owned by individual towns or managed by the Cape Cod National Seashore, a federal entity. Town-owned beaches fall under M.G.L. c. 258, which allows suits against municipalities for the negligence of their employees, subject to the two-year presentment deadline and $100,000 damages cap I’ve written about previously. National Seashore beaches involve the Federal Tort Claims Act, with its own separate two-year administrative claim deadline, which I discussed in the context of the newborn jaundice malpractice case earlier this year.
The threshold question in any beach liability case is whether the town or federal agency was negligent, and that question turns on what they knew and what they did about it. The legal debate on Cape Cod has played out most visibly around shark detection and warning systems. After the 2018 Wellfleet fatality, some towns hesitated to install shark detection buoys or deterrent technologies, with officials citing concern that offering enhanced protection might create a “false sense of security” and expose the town to greater liability if an attack still occurred. Critics of that position, including some attorneys with municipal liability experience, have argued the opposite: that knowing about a dangerous condition and doing nothing to mitigate it is itself the more legally vulnerable position.
Michael Fee, a partner at Pierce and Mandell who lives in Truro and has studied the issue, put it directly: you are more likely to be sued if you knew about a dangerous condition and did nothing. The town of Wellfleet in particular had documented knowledge of frequent shark activity at Newcomb Hollow throughout the summer of 2018. The beach was closed and reopened multiple times for shark sightings before the fatal attack. Whether that documented knowledge, combined with the absence of lifeguards after the summer season ended, creates a viable negligence claim under the Tort Claims Act is a legal question that has never been definitively resolved in Massachusetts court.
There is also a recreational land use statute under Massachusetts law that exempts landowners, including municipalities, from liability to people using their land for recreational purposes free of charge, when the harm results from the natural condition of the land. Most towns charge for beach parking but not beach access, and courts have generally treated that as not defeating the exemption. However, the exemption has limits, particularly when the landowner has actual knowledge of a specific dangerous condition and fails to warn visitors. Whether a shark population that triggers dozens of beach closures in a single summer constitutes a specific known dangerous condition sufficient to pierce that exemption is the kind of argument that would require careful factual and legal analysis.
The upshot is that municipal shark attack liability in Massachusetts is genuinely unsettled. No Massachusetts court has issued a definitive ruling on it. Each case would turn on the specific facts: what the town knew, what warnings were posted, whether lifeguards were on duty, whether the beach had been recently closed for shark activity, and what the victim was doing and where.
What About the Cape Cod National Seashore?
Arthur Medici was attacked at Newcomb Hollow Beach, which is within the Cape Cod National Seashore and managed by the National Park Service. A claim against the NPS would proceed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, requiring a timely administrative claim to be filed with the relevant federal agency before any lawsuit can be filed. The FTCA two-year deadline is strictly enforced, and there is no tolling for minors under federal law. I wrote in detail about the FTCA process in the context of a recent federal malpractice case involving a Massachusetts community health center, and the same framework applies here.
The NPS has its own protocols for shark monitoring and beach closures at Cape Cod National Seashore beaches. Whether those protocols were followed at the time of any specific incident, and whether their failure to follow them constitutes negligence, would be the central question in any FTCA claim.
Practical Safety and What to Do if Someone is Attacked
The Sharktivity app from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy provides real-time shark sighting and detection data for Massachusetts waters and is the most reliable tool currently available for beachgoers assessing conditions before entering the water. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries runs acoustic monitoring buoys at many Outer Cape beaches that detect tagged sharks and can trigger alerts. Lifeguard stations and beach signs reflect the most current local conditions.
If someone is attacked, get them out of the water immediately, apply direct pressure to any wound with whatever is available, and call 911. Severe shark bite injuries frequently involve arterial bleeding and can cause death from blood loss within minutes. The most important immediate action is controlling bleeding while waiting for emergency responders. The nearest trauma centers to the Outer Cape are Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis and South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, with air transport available for the most critical cases.
The Legal Takeaway
Shark attacks on Cape Cod are rare. The statistical probability of being seriously injured is extremely low, far lower than the risk of drowning, a rip current, or a car accident on Route 6. But rare is not impossible, and the legal landscape for a serious injury or wrongful death arising from a shark attack in Massachusetts is genuinely complex. It involves the interplay between the Tort Claims Act, the recreational land use exemption, the FTCA, documented municipal knowledge of shark activity, and the specific facts of the incident.
If you or a family member has been seriously injured in a shark attack or any other ocean-related incident on a Massachusetts beach, the first thing to know is that the clock starts running immediately. The two-year presentment deadline for town beaches and the two-year FTCA administrative claim deadline for federal beaches are unforgiving. Contact me before those deadlines arrive.
Call me at 508-775-3118 or email [email protected] for a free consultation.
Attorney Blair E. Weigand — Helping those with legal questions for 35 years and counting.