For several decades, our office was corporate counsel for a commercial tugboat company. We represented the company in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a lawsuit filed against the company when one of its tugboats, while docking and undocking, allided with a 600-foot oil tanker as the tanker was testing its engines. The allusion caused what was at the time, the largest oil spill in Boston’s history.
From 2000 to 2011, our office coordinated myriad levels of complicated strategies involving insurance coverage issues; litigation defense issues, including coordinating insurance defense counsel with the company’s defense; state and federal government investigations, including a federal grand jury investigation and a United States Coast Guard investigation. We also coordinated the efforts of numerous experts in tugboat handling, maritime computers, propulsion systems and navigational physics.
The case was resolved by means of a settlement conference at the First Circuit Court of Appeals.