Facts

In a heavy fog, six miles off Point Reyes, the container ship Eva Danielsen collided with the small fishing vessel Buona Madre and mistakenly took it to be another fishing vessel named Martha. When the Eva Danielsen's captain radioed the U.S. Coast Guard that "it looks like we hit a fishing vessel," the coast guard dispatched a helicopter and two cutters to search for survivors and broadcast a call for help from all private vessels in the area. But barely a half-an-hour later, after the Martha had checked-in safe and the container ship's captain had erroneously concluded that his call may have been "a false alarm," the coast guard called off the search and informed all the other vessels in the vicinity that it no longer believed "that there was any indication of distress."

After the body of decedent Paul Wade was found floating six miles off Point Reyes amidst Buona Madre's wreckage the following morning, his widow and children sued the Coast Guard for wrongful death in admiralty on a theory of negligence.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS:
Plaintiffs contended that Paul Wade had survived the original collision and that he had remained alive in his life jacket, awaiting rescue, for up to seven hours before suffering hypothermia and drowning.

Plaintiffs argued that, instead of speaking directly with the officer who had actually been on the container ship's bridge at the time of the collision and who, as it turns out, had seen "the mast of a small vessel" directly under his bow moments before impact, the coast guard had violated its own search and rescue protocols and had based its decision to call of the rescue on second hand information taken from a ship's captain who had not actually witnessed any of the material events.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Defendant contended that Paul Wade had been trapped or entangled inside the Bouna Madre and had that he had drowned within minutes of the collision, before any rescuers could have reached him.

Defendant further contended that it did nothing wrong, that its search and rescue protocols were mere guidelines, and that it was entitled by long standing custom to rely on the information and opinions of a ship's captain whether or not that captain had been a witness to events.

Result

Defense. The Court concluded that decedent had survived the collision long enough to be rescued and that the coast guard had "worsened his position" by terminating the search and boardcasting its conclusion that there was no vessel in distress. But in the end, the Court decided that it could not "second guess the decisions made by rescue personnel in the midst of the rescue" and concluded that it could not say "the coast guard had failed to act with reasonable prudence under the circumstances."