Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra’s family has filed notice of a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit in New York, a year to the day after the Irish designer was found dead aboard a boat at Montauk.
Nolan-O’Slatarra, 33, an Irish-born designer who founded the swimwear brand East x East, was found unresponsive aboard a vessel named Ripple at the Montauk Yacht Club on Tuesday, 5 August 2025, as reported by Patch.
What the Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra wrongful death lawsuit alleges
Bystanders attempted CPR and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The summons with notice was lodged in the Supreme Court of the State of New York by her mother Elma Geraldine Nolan and Manhattan attorney Marcello de Peralta, temporary administrators of her estate.
It names Christopher Durnan, the boat’s reported owner.
Why no criminal charges have followed
The suit claims assault and, separately, gross negligence and reckless and wanton conduct as the cause of her death.
Durnan has not been arrested or criminally charged, and police have said an autopsy showed no evidence of violence. Michael Bowe, the family’s attorney, explained why:
“He has not been criminally charged. The standard in a criminal case is beyond a reasonable doubt and the prosecutors apparently do not think they can currently meet that burden. The standard in our civil case is a preponderance of the evidence; that is, what most likely happened.”
Suffolk County police have also said her cause of death remained pending further examination.
Bowe set out the account on which the family’s claim rests, none of which has been tested in court or endorsed by any authority:
“The family remains in the same painful place it was a year ago. Their expert medical examiner who conducted an independent autopsy does not agree Martha was killed by intoxicants, given her youth and health and the evidence we have uncovered includes that EMTs found blood in her mouth, on her chest and head and possibly behind her head. Law enforcement informed the family they believed the scene had been cleaned before responders arrived; Durnan was found naked on the dock and claimed he stripped because Martha vomited on him, but there is no evidence of that at the scene or in the autopsy.”
“He also declined to talk to the police after that night and has claimed publicly to have been in contact with the family when he has not and, in fact, has failed to respond to repeated calls and text messages from them. We will present additional evidence as the case unfolds.”
What the wrongful death lawsuit does next
Robert Holdman, an attorney representing Durnan, said he had no comment and had not yet seen the court filings.
A defendant need not answer before a complaint is formally served. Bowe described the steps ahead:
“We will serve the summons, then a complaint and then take discovery to secure all the relevant evidence before presenting it in court.”
Discovery is where the family expects the case to turn, because it compels records and sworn testimony the criminal process has not produced. Until a complaint is served and answered, the allegations remain untested claims.
