New admiralty case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This one is about the Oregon rule and the rebuttable presumption arising out of allisions. The case is Bessemer & Lake Erie R.R. Co. v. Seaway Marine Transport, and can be found here.
The trial court found that the Oregon rule established prima facie liability on behalf of the vessel for damage cause in an allision and did required the vessel owner to put on evidence to rebut the presumption before it could put on evidence that the damage was not 100% its fault. The Court disagreed. On the Oregon rule, the court stated:
That is not how the Oregon Rule works. It is a burden-shifting doctrine, “not a rule of ultimate liability.” City of Chicago, 375 F.3d at 572. While it may be the case that a moving vessel must rebut the presumption to absolve itself of all liability, id. at 573, we know of no case law to the effect that the vessel must rebut the presumption to relieve itself of some liability—that is, to raise a comparative fault defense against the stationary object. “[T]he Oregon Rule . . . speaks explicitly only to a presumed breach on the part of the alliding vessel, and is not a presumption regarding either the question of causation . . . or the percentages of fault assigned parties adjudged negligent.”
I earlier posted on the Oregon rule in a case from the Second Circuit, here.
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