The oil tanker M/T Athos I was sub-chartered by petitioners (collectively CARCO) from tanker operator Star Tankers, who had originally leased the ship from respondent Frescati Shipping Company. On the penultimate leg of its voyage from Venezuela to New Jersey, an abandoned ship anchor pierced the tanker's hull, allowing 264,000 gallons of heavy crude oil to spill into the Delaware River. According to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 33 U. S. C. 2702(a), Frescati, the vessel's owner, was responsible for paying the initial cleanup expenses (Summary of the Oil Pollution Act 2022). 

The federal government compensated Frescati for an additional $88 million in cleanup costs through the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund even though the statute limited Frescati's liability to $45 million. Then, Frescati and the US filed a lawsuit against CARCO to recoup their respective cleanup expenses. Both claimed that the oil spill was ultimately CARCO's fault due to CARCO's violation of a "safe-berth clause" in the subcharter contract between CARCO and Star Tankers. 

Frescati and the US contend that this paragraph required CARCO to choose a "safe" berth that would enable the vessel to come and go while remaining "always safely afloat," and that this responsibility amounted to a warranty regarding the safety of the chosen berth.

 

Naming a specific company for example, describe its operating procedures, extrapolate the ruling in this case to those operating procedures, and then predict how those operating procedures might change as a result of knowledge of this ruling.