Manhattan maritime attorney James Mercante has spent three decades on the water’s worst days. Ferry collisions. Fatal sinkings. Oil spills. The kind of cases that land on the front page.
Colleagues have called him “tenacious” and “pugnacious.” The description fits. Mercante comes from a family of fighters. His late father Arthur was one of boxing’s most legendary referees. His brother Arthur Jr. has spent three decades in the same trade.
Now, the boat-accident specialist and Garden City native has taken on a case unlike most of the hundreds of others on his résumé — the Montauk Yacht Club death of Irish-born fashion designer Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra.
The case remains in its earliest stage. Court records show Nolan-O’Slatarra’s family filed a summons with notice on Aug. 4. It alleges assault and gross negligence by Christopher Durnan aboard the Ripple, a vessel docked at the Montauk Yacht Club, on Aug. 4 and 5, 2025.
The claim seeks damages for Nolan-O’Slatarra’s wrongful death and the pain and suffering she endured before it. It demands a default-judgement of $50 million if Durnan fails to respond.
Mercante, 68, with the Manhattan firm Gallo Vitucci Klar LLP, filed his notice of appearance on Aug. 25 — before Durnan was even served — and demanded a formal complaint within 20 days.
By Sept. 3, the two sides had struck a deal: Mercante’s office withdrew the demand. The complaint now isn’t due until 20 days after Durnan is served and proof of service hits the court.
A complaint has not yet been filed, according to court records.
Nolan-O’Slatarra, 33, was found dead aboard the Ripple — the yacht is owned by Durnan and the two were reportedly meeting for business — shortly after midnight on Aug. 5, 2025. An autopsy proved inconclusive, with no evidence of violence found at the time, authorities said.
Last month, new details from the EMT and patient care report regarding Nolan-O’Slattara’s treatment and death were obtained and revealed by multiple media agencies. Also in August, the woman’s family launched a tip line, marthatipline.com, seeking information from the public.
Durnan, 61, an insurance executive who owns homes in Montauk, Long Beach and Palm Beach, and whose family runs Durnan Group Inc. in Rockville Centre, has not been criminally charged in Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death.
Mercante’s arrival signals the case will be fought hard. He heads Gallo Vitucci Klar’s Admiralty, Transportation and Marine Insurance practice.
He boasts nearly three decades of maritime casualty litigation, marine insurance coverage, transportation disputes. A retired U.S. Navy captain and Merchant Marine Academy grad, he now presides over the Board of Commissioners of Pilots of the State of New York — the agency that licenses the harbor pilots guiding ships into New York Harbor.
He has been the attorney of record representing defendants in some of the region’s worst maritime tragedies:
• The 2012 sinking of the Kandi Won in Oyster Bay, in which three children died.
• A powerboat-barge collision at the Tappan Zee that killed two.
• The 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash that killed 11 (he represented the tugboat owner first on scene).
• The SeaStreak ferry crash in New York Harbor.
Additionally, he’s litigated international piracy cases and handled a piece of the 2010 Gulf oil spill litigation.
“He’s tenacious, pugnacious,” Michael Chalos, who defended Exxon Valdez captain Joseph Hazelwood and has worked alongside Mercante on numerous cases, told Soundings Online. As a litigant, Chalos said, he’d want no one else in his corner.
Reached by Greater Long Island, Mercante declined to comment on the case.
A family built on the fight game
The nickname trails him for a reason. His father, Arthur Mercante Sr., was among boxing’s most respected referees; he was the third man in the ring for a whopping 145 world title fights over an iconic career that spanned nearly five decades.
He served as the refereee in the 1971 “Fight of the Century,” when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier — both still undefeated — went toe-to-toe for the first time at Madison Square Garden.
Two years later in Kingston, Jamaica, it was Mercante Sr. who stopped the Frazier-Foreman bout in the second round — the fight remembered for Howard Cosell’s call: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”
James Mercante’s brother, Arthur Mercante Jr., who like his father was a boxer as a young man, followed their dad into the ring. His 35-plus years in the ring include working Sugar Ray Leonard’s lopsided 1991 loss to Terry Norris.
In 1999, he was the third man for the controversial split-draw between heavyweights Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield.
Top: Christopher Durnan’s yacht “Ripple” in August 2025 at the Montauk Yacht Club (Brian Harmon/GLI) and James Mercante (Maritime College Alumni Assoc.).
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