Manning v. Gordon

OPINION AND ORDER

ORRICK, District Judge.

In this action involving a collision between two yachts in the course of a sailboat race, the Court is met with the threshold question as to whether the doctrine of assumption of risk may be applied to a case arising under the General Maritime Law of the United States. The question, one of first impression in this district and circuit, comes before the Court on plaintiffs’ Rule 12(e) Fed.R.Civ.P. 1 motion to strike the defendants’ eighth, ninth and tenth affirmative defenses of assumption of risk. For the reasons stated hereinafter and in the course of…