Greater East End coverage is funded in part by The Watershed Kitchen & Inn — a warm, stylish North Fork destination in S. Jamesport featuring elevated comfort food, craft cocktails and beautiful boutique accommodations.
The family of Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra has filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Garden City businessman who owned the yacht where the 33-year-old fashion designer was found dead just after midnight last August.
The Tuesday court filing in Supreme Court in Manhattan came a day short of one year after Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death in a vessel docked at the Montauk Yacht Club shook the East End at the height of the summer tourist season.
The summons with notice accuses Christopher Durnan of intentionally and wrongfully assaulting Nolan-O’Slatarra and of gross negligence and reckless and wanton conduct that caused her death aboard the yacht at the ritzy yacht club on Star Island Road.
The filing was brought by Elma Geraldine Nolan, the designer’s mother, of Carlow, Ireland, and Manhattan attorney Marcello de Peralta, acting as temporary administrators of Nolan-O’Slatarra’s estate under a New York County Surrogate’s Court order dated July 30.
The document is a preliminary filing that puts Durnan on notice of the claims and starts his clock to respond, rather than a fully detailed complaint laying out the family’s evidence.
It seeks two categories of damages under New York’s estate law: wrongful death claims on behalf of Nolan-O’Slatarra’s survivors, and a separate claim for the “conscious pain and suffering” she is alleged to have endured before she died.
The suit also seeks punitive damages, interest, attorneys’ fees and costs. Should Durnan fail to respond, the filing states, the family could win a default judgment of $50 million.
Durnan has not been criminally charged in connection with Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death, and an attorney for Durnan has previously maintained he was not responsible for it, according to prior published reports.
Durnan has over the last year not replied to Greater Long Island’s requests for comment. He again could not be reached for comment for this report.
A year of unanswered questions
Nolan-O’Slatarra’s body was discovered aboard the Ripple, a SeaRay belonging to Durnan, after bystanders were roused by a man running nude down the dock seeking help. Good Samaritans attempted CPR before first responders pronounced her dead at the scene, authorities and witnesses said.
Suffolk Police said in the days after her death that a preliminary autopsy showed no evidence of violence, and that toxicology results and further testing were needed to determine an official cause of death.
Within days, Newsday reported the county’s East End Drug Task Force had opened its own review, and GLI later reported that investigators were also looking into unverified family claims that Nolan-O’Slatarra had been battling brain cancer.
Nolan-O’Slatarra, a native of Ireland who moved to New York about 10 years ago, was the founder of East x East, a swimwear and resortwear label that ran a pop-up shop at Gurney’s Resort in Montauk the summer she died.
Durnan, an insurance executive and son of the founders of Rockville Centre-based Durnan Group Inc., had invested in the brand. He and Nolan-O’Slatarra had met aboard his boat to discuss the business, according to earlier reports.
Durnan owned a beachfront home in Montauk and another in Palm Beach, Florida, at the time.
Records previously reviewed by GLI also showed Nolan-O’Slatarra had finalized an uncontested divorce from her husband, Sam Ryan, just months before her death, and that she and an East x East business partner had settled a 2022 lawsuit accusing them of taking $34,000 from a former company’s bank account.
Nolan-O’Slatarra was laid to rest later that August at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow, her hometown.
Top: Ripple yacht docked in Montauk Yacht Club last summer (Brian Harmon photo), Christopher Durnan (Instagram) and Martha Nolan-O’Slattara (TikTok).
Prior coverage
Your Long Island news, delivered.
Subscribe to the GLI Newsletter — its free
