Ninth Circuit Limits its KEN LUCKY Decision to its Procedural Peculiarities

Many physical suppliers of bunkers/marine fuel, who were unpaid by their contractual counterparties, have relied on a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Marine Fuel Supply & Towing, Inc. v. M/V KEY LUCKY, 869 F.2d 473 (9th Cir. 1988), as jurisprudential support for the concept that the physical supplier has a maritime lien against the vessel supplied with the fuel, even though the physical supplier did not take the order for the fuel from the vessel’s owner, charterer or agent. A close reading of the KEN LUCKY decision indicated that the Ninth Circuit reached its conclusion based upon the vessel interests’ admission in the pleadings that Bulkferts, the subcharterer of the vessel, had ordered the fuel from Marine Fuel. Id. at 476-77. (The actual chain of contracts was Bulkferts ordered the fuel from Brook Oil, who then ordered the fuel from Marine Fuel.) Because the vessel interests had admitted that their…

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