A tugboat captain involved in an oil spill off the Marin County coast is liable for the government’s $14 million cleanup, a federal judge ruled.
The boat operator, Christian Lint, died from other causes after the incident. But his estate and the owners of the involved boats were sued by the U.S. Department of Justice to recover the cleanup costs.
Lint lost control of another vessel that ran aground near Dillon Beach in 2021. Lint’s estate argued that the ship’s owners — not the tugboat captain or “operator” under maritime laws – were liable, so Lint should be removed from the lawsuit.
But U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly of the Western District of Washington disagreed and rejected the estate’s motion. Zilly ruled that the term “operator” under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 “includes an individual who directs or controls the movement of a vessel.”
“It is undisputed that Lint was the master of the Tug Hunter, the tug was towing M/V American Challenger at the time of the Incident,” Zilly wrote in the decision, which was released on April 22. “Lint was an ‘operator’ of the Tug Hunter within the meaning of the OPA at the time of the Incident.”
Robert Stewart Lint II, the defendant’s brother and estate administrator, said his brother’s assets have been depleted from litigating the case and compared the federal lawsuit to “beating a dead horse.”
He also said the ruling set a troubling precedent because it exposed captains and crews to liability, where previously only ship owners were liable.
“You should emphasize that this makes every single mate liable for the damages of the vessels he’s on,” said Lint, a retired merchant marine officer licensed by the Coast Guard. “This is the first time it has ever been done like this — and that’s where my attorneys were coming from.”
The Department of Justice office in San Francisco referred requests for comment to Washington, D.C. That Washington office declined to comment.
The wreck happened when Lint was towing a 90-foot fishing boat from the Seattle area. Near Bodega Bay, “the towline became entangled in a propeller, causing both vessels to drift toward Dillon Beach,” the ruling said.
Lint used the tugboat anchor to stop, but the “American Challenger continued adrift and grounded on a rocky shoreline south of Estero de San Antonio.”
The U.S. Coast Guard “ultimately recovered approximately 14 cubic yards of oiled debris, 400 to 700 gallons of mixed oily water, and 50 gallons of hydraulic oil from the vessel,” the ruling said. “The United States estimates it has incurred $14,258,062.00 in response costs directly related to the pollution incident.”
Robert Lint said his brother was a victim of bad circumstances, including, he claims, not being helped by the Coast Guard before the Challenger hit the rocks. After it ran aground, the Coast Guard worked to contain the spill and began its cleanup.
“There’s a liability, an absolute liability, on oil spills,” Lint said. “But in this case, he was not the owner of the vessel or had any financial interest in it. … The law generally assesses people who have a financial interest in it and are supposed to have gotten the insurances. He was just merely a crew on it, and an unpaid crew.”
Apparently, neither the American Challenger nor the tugboat Hunter were insured, the Press Democrat reported in 2021. It said both boats were owned by a Florida man “who was unable to cover the costs himself.”