Doesn’t the Pennsylvania Rule only apply to vessels in US waters?
Depends on the what provisions of the Pennsylvania Rule that a court might consider: Jurisdictional, Substantive or Procedural, and
Choice of Law (which country’s laws to apply).
I think it is quite likely that a US court might choose to apply US law to a US flag vessel regardless of location.
Probably unlikely for a foreign court (especially if it’s not a common law jurisdiction) to choose to apply US law, especially in its home waters, but it’s possible.
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The master of the tanker had two minutes to realize that the USN vessel hitherto passing clear to Port was now on a collision course. In this two minutes they first had to appreciate the alteration had taken place, check it was clear to come to port using hard rudder. I don’t remember all the facts but the sudden alteration of course was caused by operator error on the warship.
Can the judgement be appealed? Or is there a risk of Tariffs or suspension of doing business in the US,
Lets face it the international reputation of the USA has suffered some damage in the last few years.
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I agree that it might not be reasonable to expect the tanker to maneuver clear. But the destroyer is far more nimble. My guess is the tanker was found at fault for failure to maintain a proper lookout and failure to use the danger signal.
The tanker could also have briefly turned on it’s deck lights or used a search light to alert the Navy ship.
Edit: The MAIB may disagree but use of the VHF in this case might also have been appropriate.
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My answer, FWIW:
In the U.S. the Pennsylvania Rule (PR) is a legal principle in maritime law. Any lawyer anywhere however can use the principle which underlies the Pennsylvania rule to construct an argument.
In U.S maritime cases the PR is also a legal precedent. That’s not necessarily the case in other jurisdictions outside the U.S.
The World has basically two types of legal systems: Common Law, and Civil Code.
In the common law system (the UK and former British Colonies, like the US), court decisions create case law and precedents.
In Colonial America, “the common law” was what was written in Blackstone’s Commentaries.
In the Code system (the rest of the World that was not formerly a British colony), court decisions do not create any case law or precedents. They only rely on the rules written in the Code.
There are basically two types of common law precedents: mandatory and persuasive.
Most decisions of US District Courts (the courts that “sit in admiralty”) are unpublished, that is, they do not appear in the Fed Supp. casebooks. Court rules typically prohibit citing unpublished cases. Unpublished opinions of courts do not create precedents.
Published opinions of District Courts are persuasive, but not mandatory.
The opinions of US Courts of Appeal are published and create mandatory precedents, but only within their own circuit. For example, decisions of the First Circuit (Boston) are mandatory in the First Circuit, but only persuasive in other circuits (New York). It’s common for different circuits to reach different results and create precedents that are in conflict.
A lot of what the US Supreme Court does is resolve conflicts between the circuits in high legal impact cases.
US Supreme Court cases (like The Pennsylvania) are mandatory and binding in US courts, but would only be persuasive in the UK and former colonies.
Looking to precedents in other jurisdictions is important. Court decisions in maritime cases have become scarce. Litigation is too expensive. Most cases are settled out of court. New technology is being introduced. For example: are there any court decisions about collisions that were “assisted” by GPS and AIS spoofing? Once there are, those cases will be persuasive precedent no matter where they come from.
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