Opinion ID: 2960624
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Requiring Annual Inspections of Ballast Tanks

Text: The first proposed change would have required an internal inspection of all ballast tanks at each annual survey of a vessel after that vessel was fifteen years old. This change was adopted only in part,10 and the parties do not dispute that the structural failure aboard the Prestige that eventually led to the sinking of the vessel began in a tank that was not inspected at the Prestige’s final annual survey in 2002. The problem for Spain, however, is that even if fully adopted and implemented prior to the 2002 survey, this rule change would not have mandated an inspection of that tank. As Spain admitted in its Response to Defendants’ Rule 56.1 Statement in the district court, the Prestige had tanks for solely carriage of cargo, tanks dedicated to saltwater ballast and tanks designated for the carriage of either cargo or ballast (so-called “cargo/ballast tanks”). J.A. 2477. And as Spain further noted in that same Response, J.A. 2487, the ABS survey rule definitions, at all relevant times, expressly distinguished between ballast and cargo/ballast tanks, see J.A. 2622. 10 The rule as adopted required annual internal inspection only of ballast tanks that were adjacent to cargo tanks with heating coils. 18 The rule change at issue, as proposed by ABS, applied only to ballast tanks, rather than cargo/ballast tanks, J.A. 882, 3311, and as adopted applied only to a more limited subset of ballast tanks, J.A. 3311. Cf. J.A. 103 (Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint) (alleging that after the Erika casualty, ABS instituted “a requirement that water ballast tanks adjacent to tanks with heating coils” receive annual internal inspections). But Spain’s theory of the Prestige casualty is that the casualty ultimately resulted from the failure of the “longitudinal bulkhead between the . . . No. 3 center cargo oil tank and No. 3 starboard cargo/ballast wing tank.” Appellant’s Br. 7 (emphases added); see also J.A. 2488 (Spain Response to ABS 56.1 Statement) (same). We thus fail to see how a requirement that dedicated water ballast tanks receive annual inspections, even if fully in place at the time of the 2002 survey, would have made a causal difference with respect to the sinking of the Prestige.11 To be sure, the final report of the ABS investigation into the Castor casualty, issued in October 2001, concluded that ABS rules had erred in treating 11 Indeed, Spain contended in its Rule 56.1 Statement below that the surveyor in 2002 conducted a faulty inspection because, (1) in certain circumstances ABS rules required that a cargo/ballast tank be treated as if it were a ballast tank, and (2) in those circumstances, such a tank was required to be inspected at an annual survey, but (3) the surveyor failed to follow ABS rules and inspect that tank accordingly. J.A. 2487. It is undisputed that the 2002 survey occurred outside the United States; Spain does not argue on appeal that any putative failure to follow ABS rules in the conduct of that survey implicated a breach of duty on the part of ABS personnel within the United States. 19 cargo/ballast tanks less stringently than dedicated ballast tanks, and recommended that both types of tanks be inspected at each annual survey. J.A. 967-968. At minimum, however, we do not think that a reasonable jury could conclude that ABS was reckless merely by failing to both adopt and implement such a rule change between October 2001 and the final annual survey of the Prestige in May 2002.