Gulf Tampa Drydock Co. And Commercial Union Insurance Company v. Germanischer Lloyd

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

In this admiralty case, the district court below found Germanischer Lloyd, a ship classification society, 1 liable in contribution to Gulf Tampa Drydock Company (Tampa Drydock) 2 for damages arising from a fire aboard the cargo ship CAP NORTE on a theory of concurrent negligence. (Tampa Drydock had been found negligent and thus liable to the owners of the CAP NORTE in an earlier proceeding.) 3 Germanischer Lloyd asks that the district court decision be reversed. The company has raised two issues of law: whether collateral estoppel should preclude liability and whether…