Edinburgh Assurance Corpn. v. R. L. Burns Corpn. et al (The Gatto) - U.S. Ct. of Appeals (9th Circuit) - 22 January 1982

Marine insurance - Whether mobile drilling platform “actual total loss”

The defendants obtained insurance in London which covered risks attendant to the proposed salvage of the off-shore mobile drilling platform Gatto Selvatico (“ Gatto ”) which had become disabled in the Mozambique Channel. The plaintiff insurers brought a declaratory action seeking judgment that no insured event had occurred. The policy insured the Gatto venture against “Actual Total Loss Only”, and the principal issues were the meaning of this contract term and whether there occurred a casualty within the meaning of the term. The district court found in favour of the defendants, holding that it was “extremely unlikely that more than a few component parts of the [Gatto] could be used in any rebuilding of the platform”, and that “the Gatto had to be considered as wreckage or as a dispersed wreck with little value other than as scrap metal”.