Ship Owner Sues Pharmacists in 2007 San Francisco Bay Spill

The owners and operators of the Cosco Busan container ship that leaked thousands of gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay in 2007 are suing pharmacists who they say dispensed drugs to the ship’s pilot.

Regal Stone Ltd., owner of the Cosco Busan, and Fleet Management Ltd., the ship’s operator, say the pills dispensed by pharmacists at a Longs Drug Store in Petaluma clouded pilot John Cota’s judgment and led the ship to slam into the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, spilling more than 50,000 gallons of oil.

The lawsuit – filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Friday – seeks to recover some of the millions of dollars in payments Regal Stone and Fleet Management have made following the spill.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a representative of CVS Caremark, which owns Longs, was not available for comment.