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Mr. GOTIMER. Yes, it is. As a matter of fact, if I might digress
perhaps a little bit, I wonder what would happen in the case of a
Navy ship which runs aground or gets in a collision where the tax-
payer, through paying tolls for the Government ship has contribut-
ed to a big fund to pay those claims; and because of nonliability, it
comes to Congress, and Congress either agrees and says yes, pay it,
in which case the taxpayer is paying a second time, or they say
don't pay it, and then it goes and is paid out of the Department of
Navy's budget. In either event, I think the taxpayer gets hit twice
there if you are are talking about a Government ship involved in
the same situation as opposed to spreading the risk out by virtue of
the $6 million fund for outside-the-lock claims.
Mr. LUCIANO. Mr. Chairman, may I address that question as
well?
Mr. HUBBARD. Sure.
Mr. LUCIANO. I think there is, in addition, a question of equity
here. That is, the kinds of claims we are talking about are claims
that are the result of failure on the part of Commission employees.
To ask a vessel owner to bear the cost of insuring his vessel for
events that are under someone else's control and are, in fact, the
fault of someone else raises a serious question of equity.
Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you.
Mr. Gotimer, on page 3 of your testimony you state.
The elimination of settlement authority and judicial review in out-of-locks claims
prevents a claimant from presenting all relevant evidence to the Panama Canal to
allow a full and fair evaluation of the claim.
Should not this "relevant evidence" be submitted to the Panama
Canal prior to their submission of the claim to the Congress?
Mr. GOTIMER. Mr. Chairman, the problem is-and this is no criti-
cism of the Panama Canal Commission-representing a ship owner
we have no way of knowing what is relevant. We do participate in
the board of local inspectors' investigation. We know what issue
they consider relevant. They then come out with a report which
has findings of fact and conclusions; and the conclusions are, for
instance, fault: The pilot was going too fast; the ship had a fault in
that their automatic engine logger did not record a certain bell.
They do not apportion liability. What considerations go into that
liability and the amount of liability that would be apportioned to
either side we have no knowledge of.
As to what is done with the damages that are submitted, what is
considered provable and not consider provable, we have no input at
all into that. All we do is send the damage claim and supporting
documentation to the Commission; it is analyzed; the Commission
then sends back and asks for whatever additional information they
want. Only after the report is issued by the Panama Canal, it goes
through OMB and gets in Congress, and Congress releases it, does
the ship owner or his attorney have any idea what is in that
report.
When we have a case in court, we know what the issues are, we
can brief the issues, we can address the issues. We are operating in
a vacuum here with respect to most of the issues other than the
initial board of local inspectors' investigation.