ELR Citation: ELR 20808
No(s). 71-1136 (9th Cir. Sep 20, 1973)

Private pleasure boat owners may not recover damages for loss of navigational rights in the Santa Barbara Channel due to the 1969 oil spill, although they can recover for physical injury to their boats in either a negligence or a nuisance action. The navigational rights claim sounds in maritime tort since the injury bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity, and under federal maritime law loss of use of a private pleasure boat is not a compensable item of damages. Federal maritime jurisdiction precludes application of California law to the navigational claims through the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and even if state law did apply under the recent precedent of Askew v. American Waterways Operators, Inc., (U.S. 1973, 3 ELR 20362), it would not allow recovery for an injury caused by a public nuisance visited equally on the members of the public at large. The court suggests that a contrary result would have been reached if plaintiffs had been commercial fishermen, for whom the injury would have been different in kind from the general loss of recreation rights.

Counsel for Plaintiffs
James J. Oppen
10 Marine Center Building
Santa Barbara Breakwater
Santa Barbara, CA 93109

Counsel for Defendants
Girard E. Bourdreau
O'Melveny & Myers
611 West 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90017

Richard B. Goethels
Schell & Delamer
Suite 440 Rowan Building
458 Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Max K. Jamison
McCutchon, Black, Verleger & Shea
3435 Wilshire Boulevard
30th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017