## Facts

- Captain Olney M. Wardell, a licensed mariner, was piloting the S.S. GREATLAND into the Port of Anchorage when the vessel allided with the Port of Anchorage City Dock on March 17, 1985.
- The Coast Guard initiated an administrative proceeding seeking suspension of Wardell’s merchant mariner’s license, alleging negligent navigation.
- The Coast Guard’s theory was that Wardell approached too close to the dock and began the “dock turn” without sufficient room, causing the allision.
- Wardell contended the vessel was on course and that an unusually strong current unexpectedly impeded the vessel during the turn, causing the allision without navigational fault.
- At the Coast Guard hearing, the ALJ allowed the investigating officer, Lt. J.D. Klimas (also serving as the Coast Guard’s representative), to present reconstructed course charts based on the vessel’s bell books and course recorder strip.
- Wardell objected that Klimas was not properly qualified as an expert, that the reconstruction failed to account for navigational instrument error, and that Klimas’s dual role violated the Coast Guard’s “rule of exclusion” (46 C.F.R. § 5.501(d)(5)).
- The ALJ found Wardell negligent and suspended his license; the NTSB affirmed.
- Wardell petitioned for judicial review in the Ninth Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged procedural and evidentiary defects at the Coast Guard administrative hearing required vacatur of the NTSB’s order suspending Wardell’s license.
2. Whether the NTSB could apply the admiralty presumption that a moving vessel that allides with a stationary object is negligent, and whether Wardell presented sufficient evidence to rebut that presumption.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit denied the petition for review and affirmed the NTSB’s order suspending Wardell’s license.
- The court held that the admiralty presumption of negligence applied because the GREATLAND, while under Wardell’s control, struck a stationary dock.
- The court concluded Wardell did not present competent evidence to rebut the presumption; his current explanation was unsupported by corroborating data or expert proof.
- Although the court identified significant procedural defects in the hearing (including the investigating officer’s effective use as an expert witness), it treated them as non-prejudicial because the outcome was supported independently by the unrebutted presumption and the undisputed allision.

## Legal Principles

- In an allision between a moving vessel and a stationary object, admiralty law imposes a rebuttable presumption that the moving vessel’s operator was negligent; the operator must produce evidence showing the allision occurred without navigational fault.
- The NTSB may apply admiralty evidentiary presumptions in administrative mariner-discipline cases, and an unrebutted presumption may constitute substantial evidence supporting a finding of negligence.
- Procedural and evidentiary errors in an administrative hearing do not require reversal absent a showing of prejudice affecting the fairness or reliability of the outcome.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit sustained the NTSB’s suspension of Wardell’s merchant mariner’s license, holding that the admiralty presumption of negligence arising from a vessel’s allision with a stationary dock remained unrebutted and provided substantial evidence for discipline, and that identified hearing defects did not justify relief without prejudice.


Wardell v. Dep’t of Transp., 884 F.2d 510 (9th Cir. 1989)