A federal judge has found a tugboat captain liable for a $14 million cleanup bill, four years after the derelict fishing boat he was hauling grounded on rocks north of Dillon Beach.
The American Challenger’s 2021 wreck drew attention to the problem of derelict and uninsured boats along the California coast, and some say the late-April ruling could upend longstanding maritime norms that placed liability on owners, not crew.
Though the tugboat’s skipper, Christian Lint,…