Opinion ID: 2960624
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Requiring Two Surveyors at Special Surveys

Text: Second, ABS proposed that two surveyors be present at all Intermediate and Special Surveys, beginning with the Third Special Survey. It is undisputed that this proposal was adopted with respect to tankers of the size of the Prestige, and that the revised rule went into effect on July 1, 2001; it is also undisputed that no more than one surveyor at a time was present for the Fifth Special Survey of the Prestige, which occurred in May 2001. Spain implies that the failure to adopt this rule change immediately (such that it would have been in effect at the time of the 2001 Special Survey) was reckless. We are unpersuaded. Spain has not advanced evidence, beyond the rule-change proposal itself and the phrasing of the accompanying press release, that conducting Intermediate or Special Surveys without a two-inspector requirement posed an obvious and unjustifiable safety risk. Moreover, in this instance ABS adopted and implemented the proposal at issue, which rather weakens any suggestion 20 that ABS disregarded such a risk if present. True, ABS did not implement the rule-change for at least a year after adoption, but we do not think that any delay in implementation of even a necessary change in safety rules is reckless per se; and Spain points us to no evidence in this record (and we have found none) from which a reasonable jury could conclude that the particular delay in implementation at issue here was even wrongful, much less reckless.