Woodyer

MEMORANDUM **

Woodyer challenges the district court’s judgment against her in this suit in admiralty against the United States Coast Guard. She argues that on April 17, 2000, she was injured when the Coast Guard twice rammed the Tiger, a boat she was on while monitoring and protesting a Makah whale hunt off the coast of the Olympic Peninsula, in Washington.

After a bench trial, the district court found that the government’s actions were not negligent and did not cause the collisions, and that the Coast Guard’s use of force was appropriate in defense of the whaling canoe and the vessels surrounding it from the threat posed by the Tiger. Woodyer was not operating the Tiger, but the court found that she was negligent because she was an active participant in that day’s events and did nothing to repudiate the acts of the boat’s operator.

Woodyer claims that the district court’s findings of fact are clearly erroneous and should be reversed. This argument fails. The court’s findings of fact are amply supported by the evidence, particularly the trial testimony and the numerous videos of the incidents (Woodyer’s own video among them). Therefore, they must be upheld. See Madeja v.…