Opinion ID: 2960624
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mandating Use of SafeHull (or its Equivalent)

Text: Finally, ABS proposed mandating the inclusion of certain “Condition Assessment Program” requirements, including a structural fatigue assessment, at the Third Special Survey and each Special Survey thereafter. Spain asserts, and ABS does not contest, that this change would have required that all existing vessels receive a SafeHull analysis (or, presumably, that of an equivalent program) once they reached fifteen years of age. This change, if immediately adopted and implemented, would have applied to the Prestige when it underwent its Fifth Special Survey in 2001. It is undisputed that the change was not adopted. But the failure to adopt and immediately implement this proposal, however, could not be found, on this record, to constitute recklessness on the part of ABS. As before, Spain has adduced no evidence, beyond the bare fact of the proposal itself and its companion press release, that ABS proposed requiring 21 SafeHull for surveys of existing vessels because surveys without SafeHull posed an obvious and unjustifiable safety risk. In such circumstances, a jury could reach the conclusion that ABS acted in conscious disregard or indifference to such risk only by acting “solely on its own conjecture or surmise.” Bryant v. Maffucci, 923 F.2d 979, 985 (2d Cir. 1991). We note that on appeal ABS asserts, and Spain does not contest, that as of February 2000, when ABS’s proposal was made, no classification society then used a program like SafeHull in classification surveys of built vessels, let alone required the use of such a program. Conformity to industry custom and practice, while not alone dispositive, is certainly relevant to a recklessness analysis, and cuts strongly against Spain here. Spain rightly notes that, standing alone, “[m]ethods employed in any trade, business or profession, however long continued, cannot avail to establish as safe in law that which is dangerous in fact.” Tug Ocean Prince, Inc. v. United States, 584 F.2d 1151, 1156 (2d Cir. 1978). But this merely begs the question of whether, at the relevant time, it was obvious that the failure to require the use of SafeHull or its equivalent was “dangerous in fact.” Since Spain has not introduced sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that it was, Spain’s claim on this point fails.