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CRUISE SHIP LITIGATION IN A NUTSHELL: A Guest Blog by Damian Sullivent

I.       litigation for cruise line cases.

The cruise ship industry brings in an estimated $37.85 billion annually with an estimated 12.201 million passengers traveling on pleasure cruises departing from North American ports yearly. [1] While these numbers continue to grow at an annual rate of 7.4 percent, [2] the safety aboard these ships has not increased with the growth of the industry. As such, claims of injuries, physical and sexual assaults by crew members, and violent illnesses from contaminated foods and poor stateroom conditions have become commonplace; resulting in an ever-increasing need for advocacy and protection among cruise ship passengers.

It is important to keep in mind that cruise liners cannot simply be classified as common carriers in a common sense because they are giant floating cities. Unlike most cities though, cruise liners lack the fundamental infrastructure, like safety procedures and protocols, necessary to protect passengers from harm. Additionally, travelers are put in a precarious situation with obsolete laws and contractual language limiting the rights and remedies afforded to them.

All that being said, the ability to recover from any type of negligence involving cruise ships is not impervious. Over the past several decades several American courts, have handed down several landmark decisions regarding cruise liners and held said cruise liners accountable for the negligence that occurs to their passengers.

This article outlines some basic procedural issues practitioners might face when attempting to litigate a claim against a cruise liner.

II.        Procedural Pitfalls Associated with Cruise Line Litigation

Statute of Limitations

One of the procedural pitfalls that causes the biggest concerns from a practitioner standpoint is the statute of limitations. A statute of limitations gives a party a reasonable amount of time to investigate a potential claim and file suit on a said particular claim. These statutes are generally determined by Florida Law and can be different from one claim to another. For example, in Florida, there is a four-year statute of limitations on personal injury cases; while a wrongful death action is only two years. Unfortunately, for injuries resulting from the negligence associated with a cruise liner, the statute of limitations is generally governed by the cruise liner’s contract provisions and is generally on a more limited time frame. For injuries or deaths stemming from negligence associated with a cruise ship, the contract (implied by the purpose of the ticket) typically provides that a passenger provides some sort of notice of a claim to the cruise line themselves within six months and commences a lawsuit within one year. [3]

However, it is important to note that courts will occasionally reject such restrictive limitation measures as they relate to lack of notice, [4] tolling for a minor passenger, [5] equitable estoppel, [6] contractual overreaching, [7] accident on shore, [8] and fraud with regard to settlement. [9] For non-physical injury claims (e.g. fraud, deception, theft), cruise liners usually impose an even shorter limitation period. [10] The court may decide not to enforce these types of limitations if the injured party can show they are unreasonable under the circumstances, contrary to public policy, or against the state statute of limitations.

Forum Selection Clauses

Contained within the ticket package is a forum selection clause that dictates where a passenger must file his/her claim against the cruise line. It is important to keep in mind that the passenger’s physical location is irrelevant with regard to the contractual obligation relating to the forum selection clause. Currently, the available forums to bring forth a claim against a cruise line are isolated to the three major port cities within the United States: Miami, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Aside from the physical location, many cruise liners have also worded their forum selection clauses to provide that cases must be brought in the United States District Court (i.e. federal court). For actions brought in the state of Florida, a large majority of those cases must be filed in the Southern District of Florida.

Courts have held that to be enforceable, forum selection clauses in cruise tickets or brochures must be fundamentally fair. [11] Courts have determined that fundamental fairness means (1) that the forum was not selected to discourage the pursuit of litigation of legitimate claims; (2) no fraud or overreaching occurred; (3) adequate notice was available; (4) the consumer has a reasonable opportunity to reject the cruise contract without penalty. [12] In an effort to combat forum selection clauses, Plaintiffs have been successful in showing that they were not given adequate time to review the cruise contract and cancel their cruise without being subject to penalty. [13]

Choice of Law Provisions

Aside from a forum selection clause, a passenger ticket might contain a choice of law provision outlining what must be applied in resolving any issue which may arise. Choice of law clauses are generally upheld has enforceable unless the passenger can demonstrate that enforcement would be unreasonable, that fraud or overreaching exists, and if there is a strong public policy reason as to which such provision should not be enforced. Courts may consider several factors in determining whether a choice of law clause should be enforced such as (1) the place of the wrongful act, (2) the law of the flag, (3) the allegiance or domicile of the injured passenger, (4) the allegiance of the ship owner, (5) the place of contract, (6) the inaccessibility of the foreign forum, and (7) the law of the forum. [14]

Jurisdictional Issues

In order to sue a cruise line locally, the consumer’s court must have jurisdiction. Most jurisdictional issues arise when an accident occurs in international waters and involve rem claims against the ship. [15] Thankfully, there may be a possibility to assert personal jurisdiction over a cruise carrier if that carrier conducts business through an agent or maintains an office with a staff, a bank account, and a telephone number with the jurisdiction. If such indicia are not present, courts generally will apply the “solicitation-plus doctrine.” This doctrine applies if the cruise liner engaged in the active solicitation of business, plus some type of commercial or financial dealing within the state, if the foreign corporation holds itself out as operating in the state, and/or if the contract formation is in the state. However, this doctrine does not apply when a cruise company takes reservations and distributes brochures through a travel agent.

Cruise Contract Exclusions and Disclaimers and Their Validity

It is important to keep in mind that although litigation regarding cruise ships is fiddled with complexity, cruise ships are still classified as common carriers and are held to a reasonable standard of care under the circumstances. [16] As such, cruise ships that touch U.S. shores are not able to disclaim liability for loss, death, damage, or delay caused or contributed by the ship’s negligence. [17] Passenger tickets may contain clauses that attempt to disclaim liability for a variety of problems, but disclaimers for gross negligence and intentional misconduct are not able to be enforced with regard to common carriers. [18] Additionally, disclaimers that include simple negligence regarding the health and safety of passengers are usually not enforced.

In Kornberg v. Carnival Cruise Lines , [19] the cruise line sought to enforce a clause in the passenger contract disclaiming liability for the discomfort of passengers. The Kornberg court stated: Of the three disclaimers, the disclaimer of liability for negligence appears to be the most applicable to this suit. Yet, for good reason, Carnival does not rely on this disclaimer. 46 U.S.C.A. §183c expressly invalidates any contract provision purporting to limit a ship’s liability for negligence to its passengers. It shall be unlawful for the manager, agent, master, or owner of any vessel transporting passengers between ports of the United States or between any such port and a foreign port to insert in any rule, regulation, contract, or agreement any provision or limitation (1) purporting, in the event of loss of life or bodily injury arising from the negligence or fault of such owner or his servants, to relieve such owner, master, or agent from liability. [20]

Unfortunately, courts have been reluctant to not enforce disclaimers of liability regarding accidents that occur while on excursions. [21] Some courts have held that a disclaimer for an on-shore excursion may not be enforceable if the passenger relied upon representations or warranties regarding the safety, competence, and reliability of on-shore suppliers of travel services. [22] This is especially troubling since cruise ships generate a substantial amount of money from these excursions, which are typically delivered by independent contractors not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and who are usually uninsured and unlicensed. [23] Finally, although these disclaimers might be enforceable against the cruise carrier, many courts continue to hold that the ground providers are not immune from liability.

[1] Statistic Brain Research Institute, Cruise Ship Industry Statistics (2017), https://www.statisticbrain.com/cruise-ship-industry-statistics/ (last visited Jan. 25, 2018).

[3] Angel v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. , 2002 WL 31553524, at *1, *5 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 22, 2002) (passenger fell overboard; court-enforced one-year contractual statute of limitation; Konikoff v. Princess Cruises, Inc. , 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14034, at *6 (D.V.I. Aug. 13, 2001) (passenger sustained injury exiting taxi during shore excursion; claim dismissed as untimely); Levick v. Steiner Transocean Limited , 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14770 (S.D. Fla. July 13, 200) (one-year passenger limitation to file applied to claims against an independent contractor who ran the spa on the ship, and filing suit in state court did not toll the time period to file suit in federal court).

[4] Ward v. Cross Sound Ferry , 273 F.3d 520, 526 (2d. Cir. 2001) (plaintiff slipped and fell on gangway; one-year time limitations clause not enforced; passenger receiving ticket two minutes before boarding did not have notice of time limitations clause)

[5] Gibbs v. Carnival Cruise Lines , 314 F.3d 125 (3d Cir. 2002) (minor burned feet hot sundeck surface; one-year statute of limitations period tolled for minor until after parent began serving as guardian ad litem after the commencement of lawsuit).

[6] Dillon v. Admiral Cruises, Inc. , 960 F.2d 743, 746 (8th Cir. 1992) (plaintiff tripped and injured himself in the ship’s lounge; cruise liner potentially estopped from relying on one-year time limitation).

[7] See Long v. Hollan Am. Line Westours , 26 P.3d 430, 436 (Alaska 2001).

[8] Rams v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Inc. , 17 F.3d 11, 13 (1st Cir. 1994) (one-year statute of limitations does not apply to accidents during a shore excursion).

[9] Berg v. Royal Caribbean Cruises , 810-12 (D.N.J. 1994) (plaintiff was intentionally misled into not filing a lawsuit against cruise liner within one year).

[10] Insogna v. Princess Cruises, Inc. , N.Y.L.J., June 10, 2002 at 37 (a six-month statute of limitation as they related to deceptive port charges was enforced).

[11] See Carnival Cruise, Inc. V. Shute , 499 U.S. 585 (1991).

[12] Cismaru v. Radisson Seven Seas Cruise, Inc. , No. Civ. A. 07-00-00100-CV, 2001 WL 6546, at *1 (Tex. App. Jan. 2, 2001).

[13] See Ward v. Cross Sound Ferry , 273 F.3d 520, 525 (2d Cir. 2001).

[14] See Klinghoffer v. S.N.C. Achille Lauro , 795 F. Supp. 112, 115015 (S.D.N.Y. 1992).

[15] See Benson v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., 859 So.2d 1213 (Fla. Ct. App. 2003) (physician was subject to personal jurisdiction in Florida under Florida’s long-arm statute for wrongful death action because cruise ship was within Florida territorial boundaries); Pota v. Holtz , 852 So.2d 379, 381 (Fla. Ct. App. 2003)(pregnant passenger complaining of stomach cramps misdiagnosed as having bladder infection goes into contractions and bleeding and cruise line denies request for airlift to hospital in Grand Cayman Island; passenger taken to hospital only after ship docks, gives birth and baby dies a few hours later; jurisdiction over ship’s doctor onboard a ship docked in Florida port); Rana v. Flyn n, 823 So.2d 302, 303 (Fla. Ct. App. 2002)(passenger suffered heart attack and was treated by ship’s doctor as cruise ship sailed into Florida waters and docked in the port of Miami; jurisdiction over ship’s doctor found).

[16] Kornberg v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. , 741 F.2d 1332,1334 (11th Cir. 1984).

[17] See. Royal Ins. Co. of Am. V. Southwest Marine , 194 F. 3d 1009, 1016 (9th Cir. 1999).

[18] See Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Reading, 674 A.2d 44 (Md.App. 1996); Bellocchio v. Italia Flotte Riunite Cosulich Line, 84 F.2d 975 (2d Cir. 1936). Tullis v. Fidelity and Casualty Co. of New York, 397 F.2d 22 (5th Cir. 1968); Marshall v. Westfal-Larsen & Co., 259 F.2d 575 (9th Cir. 1958); Goode v. Oceanic Steam Nav. Co., 251 F. 556 (2d Cir. 1918); see also, White v. United States of America 53 F.3d 43 (4th Cir. 1995), Florida Fuels, Inc. v. Citgo Petroleum Corp. 6 F.3d 330 (5th Cir. 1993) and Romero Reyes v. Marine Enterprises, Inc. 494 F.2d 866 (1974); Russell v. City Ice & Fuel Co., 539 F.2d 1318 (4th Cir. 1976); Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Trans-Atlantic, 358 U.S. 625, 79 s.Ct 406 (1959); Marshall v. Westfal-Larsen Co., 259 F.2d 575 (9th Cir. 1958); Meyers v. M/V Eugenio C, 842 F. 2d 815 (5th Cir. 1988); Urian v. Milstead, 473 F.2d 948 (8th Cir. 1973).

[19] 741 F.2d 1332, 1985 AMC 826 (11th Cir. 1984).

[20] Id. at 1335, 1985 AMC at 828.

[21] See Henderson v. Carnival corp. , 125 F. Supp. 2d 1375, 1377 (S.D. Fla. 2000) (a passenger injured themselves on a catamaran while on an excursion trip with the cruise liner; disclaimer was enforced regardless of the fact that the Carnival logo on catamaran and crew member shirts.

[22] Winter v. I.C. Holidays, Inc. , N.Y.L.J Jan. 9, 1992 at 23 (holding that tour operators have a duty to select a responsible independent contractor).

[23] Hernandez v. Holiday Inn , N.Y.L.J. Mar. 23, 1993, at 21.

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Death on the high seas: Cruise passengers face head winds with COVID lawsuits

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Lucio Gonzalez started showing symptoms similar to those of a common cold several days after disembarking in San Francisco from a cruise on the Grand Princess. Within three weeks, the 73-year-old retired state park worker was connected to a ventilator in an intensive care unit in a Marin County hospital.

Gonzalez, the first known case of COVID-19 in Marin County , died March 27, 2020.

His son, Miguel, has sued Princess Cruise Lines and its parent company, Carnival Corp., alleging the companies failed to warn passengers that they risked contracting the deadly virus by boarding the ship in the early months of a pandemic that has now killed more than 750,000 Americans.

“There is no doubt in my mind that he contracted it on that ship,” Miguel Gonzalez said in an interview.

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He is far from alone. The cruise line industry faces a wave of lawsuits from passengers and their families saying they or their loved ones contracted COVID-19 on a ship, resulting in either death or severe illness.

Yet maritime and corporate law makes it difficult to extract significant damages from cruise lines. Even after a series of coronavirus outbreaks at sea and a growing number of lawsuits, the industry’s biggest players face little serious threat, legal experts say.

Multibillion-dollar cruise companies are not worried about the potential financial effect of such lawsuits, even if they end up losing many of the cases, said Ross A. Klein, a sociology professor and cruise industry expert at St. John’s College at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

“It’s part of the price of doing business,” he said. “From their perspective, it isn’t serious.”

Activists and lawmakers have long alleged that cruise ship operators downplay onboard crimes and that investigations of them are muddied by questions of jurisdictions on international waters. The pandemic is now demonstrating how other legal constraints, and jurisdictional issues that seem to favor the cruise industry, are further complicating civil disputes over COVID-19 cases on cruise ships.

“The system is rigged in favor of the billion-dollar corporations that own these cruise ships,” said Mark Chalos, a managing partner for the San Francisco law firm that represents the Gonzalez family.

A spokesperson for Carnival Corp. said the cruise company does not comment on pending litigation.

Cases involving a death on a ship are governed by the Death on the High Seas Act, a 1920 law that limits damages collected by the family of a passenger who died because of negligence to financial losses only — not for pain and suffering, according to legal experts.

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For an elderly cruise passenger, such as Gonzalez, family members can typically expect to collect funeral and burial costs and any financial support the deceased would have contributed, legal experts say.

Judges have been tough on plaintiffs who have sued over COVID-19 infections on cruise ships, requiring the plaintiffs to detail specifically how and when they were exposed to the virus and how the cruise line was negligent in exposing them, said James Walker, a Miami attorney who has filed several cruise line lawsuits. As a result, he said, judges have dismissed many lawsuits, while others have been settled for less than $10,000 each.

Although cruise ships had a history of outbreaks even before the pandemic, many judges have also agreed that cruise lines targeted with a COVID-19 lawsuit shouldn’t be held to a stricter standard than any other place of business on land, such as a hotel, restaurant or supermarket, according to attorneys who have filed such suits.

Among the challenges facing Gonzalez and other plaintiffs battling cruise lines is what is called the ticket contract, the multi-page document that governs the relationship between a cruise passenger and the cruise company. Passengers receive the document after booking passage on a cruise.

The contract varies slightly among cruise companies but almost always prohibits passengers from filing or being part of a class-action lawsuit against a cruise line and sets specific deadlines for filing a lawsuit. The contracts also require that cases not involving personal injury, illness or death be resolved through binding arbitration.

“Ordinary families can’t band together collectively to fight with better resources,” Chalos said. “Class actions level the playing field.”

The contracts also require that lawsuits against cruise companies be filed in designated federal courthouses. Carnival Cruises requires all lawsuits against the line to be filed in the Southern District Court of Florida, in Miami. Princess Cruises requires filing in the Central District Court of California, in Los Angeles. Holland America requires lawsuits against the company to be filed in the Western District Court of Washington, in Seattle.

Legal experts say these requirements put passengers who live a long distance from the courthouse where they must file at a disadvantage. Such bureaucratic hurdles also discourage cruise passengers from taking on a cruise company.

“This means that if you live in Omaha, Nebraska, you can’t sue them in Omaha,” Ross said.

The number of lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Princess and its parent company, Carnival Corp., grew in 2020 to 96, up from 37 in 2019, court records show. The number of lawsuits filed against Carnival in Miami also increased, though only slightly, to 315 in 2020 from 306 in 2019, according to court records.

Princess Cruises made headlines in the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 spread around the world, because of several onboard outbreaks. The Diamond Princess was quarantined Feb. 4, 2020, in Yokohama, Japan, with more than 700 infected passengers. A passenger on the Grand Princess died of COVID-19 after returning to San Francisco from a cruise to Mexico.

During a Feb. 11-21 cruise taken by Gonzalez and his wife, more than 100 passengers tested positive for the virus, according to the lawsuit.

The key to winning a coronavirus lawsuit against a cruise line is proving the cruise ship failed to act reasonably under the circumstances, said Michael Karcher, a Miami attorney who specializes in maritime law.

But he said cruise lines are defending lawsuits filed early in the pandemic by arguing that nobody knew at the time the best health protocols to adopt. More recently, the largest cruise companies have added language to their ticket contracts notifying passengers that by booking a cruise they accept the risk of contracting the coronavirus on a ship — a common disclaimer at businesses nowadays.

Since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shut down cruising March 14, 2020, and extended it for more than a year, the largest cruise lines departing from the U.S. have adopted stringent health protocols, including requirements that passengers be vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 and wear masks under certain onboard conditions.

The lawsuit filed by Lucio Gonzalez’s family says that Princess Cruises knew the risks of COVID-19 from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess in Japan in early February but did not change its protocols to try to warn or protect passengers on the Grand Princess.

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“Leadership at Princess and Carnival were well aware of what to look for in high-risk situations, and knew how to advise passengers,” the lawsuit alleges. “But, as plaintiff here would discover, [the] defendants did not apply their lessons from the Diamond Princess to subsequent cruises.”

Lucio Gonzalez was a Mexican immigrant who retired from Mt. Tamalpais State Park in Marin County, where he supervised a maintenance crew. His family describe him as a humble man who loved working outdoors, taking hikes, playing soccer with his friends and going on cruises with his wife.

Once he was admitted to the hospital with a COVID-19 diagnosis, Lucio’s condition deteriorated quickly and he was put on a ventilator before any family member could talk to him.

“None of us had a chance to say goodbye to him,” said his daughter-in-law Carla.

The lawsuit says Lucio Gonzalez’s death was the direct result of his exposure to the virus on the ship and the cruise line’s failure to take effective measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

Despite previous outbreaks, employees on the Grand Princess cruise adopted no changes to the daily routine, did not try to impose social distancing among passengers and did not warn guests that a previous passenger died of COVID-19, according to family members.

“They didn’t give them common courtesy to alert them that there was a possibility that they could have contracted something,” Miguel Gonzalez said.

The main goal in filing the lawsuit, he said, was to hold Princess and Carnival accountable for his father’s death: “My hope is that we can hold their feet to the fire and make them feel some pain.”

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Hugo Martín is an assistant editor on the Fast Break Desk, the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news team. He has been a journalist with the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years, covering politics, transportation, travel, business and the outdoors. A native Californian, Martín was part of the Metro staff that won Pulitzer Prizes in 1993, 1995 and 1998. He is an avid outdoorsman, a proud father and die-hard Lakers fan.

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How Do I File a Claim Against a Cruise Line Company?

Everything You Need to Know About Cruise Ship Accident Lawsuits Against Carnival Cruise, Royal Caribbean Cruise, Celebrity Cruises, and more.

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If I’m Injured in a Cruise Accident, Who Is Responsible?

What are the cruise ship maritime laws and filing restrictions for filing a law suit against a cruise company, how does maritime law affect cruise ship injuries, what safety measures is a cruise ship common carrier responsible for providing me, what information do i need to file a cruise ship accident lawsuit, where do i file a personal injury claim against a cruise line, determining negligence in a cruise ship accident lawsuit, how long do i have to file a cruise ship accident lawsuit.

Personal injury accidents can occur anytime, anywhere – including while on vacation. A serious injury might be the last thing you expect to happen during a Carnival, Royal Caribbean, or Celebrity cruise; but it is an unfortunate reality for many people every year. From disembark to final port, each and every cruise line has an obligation to help its passengers avoid serious injury or harm.

Bloomberg Legal reports personal injury cases against cruise lines continued in an upward trend since 2016 and that, “personal injury cases against the three biggest cruise lines – Carnival, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings – accounted for 78 to 87 percent of all federal litigation they faced over the last five years, according to the data which it collected.”

Common Causes of Cruise Ship Injuries

• Ship collisions
• Technical problems
• Passengers falling overboard
• Assaults by crew members
• Food poisoning
• Wet deck slip and fall incidents

These acts of negligence can lead to serious injuries such as broken bones, concussions, and internal organ damage. In the event of injury or wrongful death, here’s how to bring a claim against Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, or Celebrity Cruise Lines.  For more information about hiring a lawyer you can read our  Miami cruise ship accident lawyer  page.

First, it is important to clarify that when you purchase a ticket and board a cruise ship, you automatically accept the cruise line’s contract. You can typically find this contract in the fine print on the bottom of your ticket. By making your purchase and boarding the ship, you legally consent to the terms of the cruise line. This liability waiver can bar injured parties from pursuing certain claims against Carnival, Royal Caribbean, or Celebrity Cruise Lines. It can also list important claim information, such as your deadlines for filing.

The contract will state something along the lines of,

“Celebrity Cruise Lines is not liable for any personal injury, illness, or death unless negligent.”

It’s important to know that the contract does not protect the cruise line from every personal injury claim – only those the carrier or cruise line employees hadn’t caused or contributed to. If you believe the cruise line or one of its employees is guilty of negligence or intent to harm, your case will circumvent the stipulations of the ticket purchase. Otherwise, Carnival, or whichever cruise line you traveled with, would be free to cause harm or conduct business negligently without fear of legal repercussions.

For example, if the injury was entirely your fault or due to your own carelessness, you will not have a case. Injuries you cannot sue for:

• If you drank too much alcohol and tripped down the stairs or into a pole
• If you were fooling around in an area blocked off to guests with proper signage
• Did not follow proper instructions and fell

What type of cruise injury can you sue for?

• Torn carpeting caused a fall
• Loose handrail caused a tumble down the stairs
• Malfunctioning elevators that lead to suffering
• Proper signage was not used to alert guests to avoid an area or use caution

In this case, you might have a premises liability lawsuit against the carrier for failing to properly maintain the cruise ship.

A cruise line lawsuit may also have a foundation in the legal theory of negligence. For instance, this might be the case if the ship’s cook failed to properly refrigerate fish, leading to an outbreak of food poisoning. When in doubt about whether you have grounds to file a claim, speak to an experienced cruise ship accident attorney .

A cruise ship owes its passengers a duty of safe transportation and protection from harm during all cruise-related activities and excursions. Passengers who are injured aboard ship may file suit against:

• The owner of the cruise ship
• The company that chartered the cruise ship
• The company that operated the cruise ship
• Or, the Company that sold the ticket as an agent of the cruise ship owner, charterer, or operator.

Although, each of these claims may be subject to cruise ship laws that affect where and when the passenger may file suit. A cruise ship attorney with maritime law experience can assist you in determining this.

Bringing a lawsuit against a cruise line for onboard injuries requires a different process than different from personal injury claims on land. Cruise ship injuries involve elements of maritime law , a distinct body of law that governs offenses and activities on water vessels . There are also different filing deadlines and liability concerns you must take into account.

Maritime laws require plaintiffs to prove fault. A common carrier owes the highest degree of care to its passengers. However, unlike typical strict liability cases, passengers must prove negligence or intent to harm in order to bring a claim against a carrier. This involves having evidence of the cruise line’s failure to exercise due care, resulting in injury.

As a common carrier, or a vessel that carries passengers for money, cruise ships must obey certain common carrier laws. These laws and  rules include  providing:

• Adequate fire protection
• Competent crewmembers
• Safe and sanitary food services
• Firefighting and lifesaving equipment
• Stable watercraft
• Safe navigation, including turbulence protocol
• Vessel control
• Environmental protection
• Protection from physical harm
• Safe arrival at the destination
• Protection from crewmember assaults
• Reasonable search and rescue for missing passengers

Passengers who sustain injuries due to negligence or intent to harm may be able to recover compensation for their medical bills, pain and suffering, lost time at work, and other damages. However, claims against Celebrity Cruise Lines follow different rules than typical claims.

At the time of your accident and shortly after, gather as much information as you can about what happened, such as:

• Statements from people who witnessed your incident
• Names of cruise ship staff members on the scene
• Photographs of anything relevant to your claim.
• Any other relevant details that may be helpful in your case

If you must go to the onboard hospital for immediate treatment for your injuries, have a friend or family member gather information for you. It’s important to record details of your incident while they are still fresh in your mind.

You must file your lawsuit at the cruise line’s headquarters. Despite being highly inconvenient for passengers who live out of state or even in a different country, cruise ship liability waivers state that injured passengers must file claims in the state of the company’s headquarters.

Filing a claim against a large cruise ship company like Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruise Line, or Carnival Cruise Line requires a firm understanding of these rules and many others. It is often in an injured passenger’s best interest to work with an attorney for these personal injury cases. A Cruise ship accident attorney can investigate your accident, help you determine the defendant(s), and gather any evidence relevant to your case.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Carnival Cruise Line, and Norwegian Cruise Line its headquarters and legal team in the Port of Miami – just a few blocks away from the United States District Courthouse where injured parties must file all claims [if headquarters are in Miami]. If you are not from Miami, this can create traveling issues for you during litigation. Entrusting your case to Miami personal injury attorneys can give you an in-state advocate, and a connection to your case from far away. The team at SteinLaw can file a passenger or employee injury claim on your behalf, and keep you updated about your case when you are in your home state.

The most important factor in your case against a cruise line is your ability to prove negligence. This hinges on the court ruling that a “reasonably careful ship operator” would have done something different in the same situation – such as knowing about a faulty staircase railing and taking steps to repair the issue. Although it’s impossible for a cruise line company to foresee all dangerous conditions, RCCL has a duty to reasonably prevent harm to passengers.

If you experienced an injury on a cruise ship, or while under their care or supervision, it is advisable to contact your lawyer well before this statute expires.

Although the one-year statute of limitations requires action within 365 days for compensation, it’s recommended to report what happened as soon as possible. For example, with Carnival Cruise Lines, cruisers can receive a full refund (in some instances) within 24 hours of departure.

In the infamous Carnival Triumph disaster of 2013, a Carnival cruise ship caught fire, leading to a power outage that left passengers stranded in the Gulf of Mexico with no electricity or working toilets for days. Injuries were mostly emotional and mental on this occasion. Carnival changed its policies thereafter in an attempt to appease future passengers. Today, cruisers can receive a full refund if they are dissatisfied with their experience – but only if they register their complaints within 24 hours of departure.

Report your accident and injuries to the cruise line as soon as possible, not only to receive a refund but also to have documented proof that the incident happened and that you reported it to authorities in a timely manner. Keep a record of whom you speak to, what he/she said to you, and how the cruise line responded to your incident and injuries.

Florida Attorney Brandon Stein provides personalized and aggressive representation to injured cruise ship passengers. Each client is treated with great respect and compassion. Attorney Stein is known as a plaintiff’s rights attorney because he fights for the client’s personal rights and especially for their rights to compensation. To schedule your free cruise injury case review with SteinLaw , contact Attorney Brandon Stein at 877-783-4652.

Brandon Stein

Chief Executive Officer

Brandon Stein is a Florida based trial attorney born in Queens, New York, and was raised in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Being the son of an accountant that owns a large firm in New Jersey, owning and operating a business is something that was engrained within Brandon Stein from a very young age... [READ BIO]

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Over 35 Years of Success for Clients

Cruise Ship Injury Settlement Lawyers

Gaining a successful result and recovering the appropriate compensation for your injuries requires the help of skilled attorneys. It’s our job to represent you against the big cruise lines while you focus on getting better. We want to hear about your accident. Don’t hesitate – please call us today for a free case review.

EXPERIENCE YOU NEED. RESULTS YOU WANT.

Understanding cruise Ship Injury Settlements

An experienced cruise ship injury lawyer can represent you during the claims process. After an initial injury claim and demand letter are made, which outlines your injuries and your reasons for wanting compensation, you may receive a settlement offer from the cruise line. The claims process could take some time – weeks or months even – as both parties collect information related to the case.

Most likely, a settlement will be offered by the cruise line rather than going to court . Again, an experienced attorney will help you navigate the settlement negotiation and advise you on your chances of success in the courtroom for a injury verdict if a settlement offer is not desirable to you. Cruise ship injury settlement amounts can range from just a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars depending on the severity of your injuries and the factors involved with your case.

Successful Case Results

Over $100 Million Recovered for Our Clients

Our lawyers are absolutely determined to get you the compensation you deserve for your injuries. Over the past 35 years, we’ve achieved numerous, positive settlements and verdicts after cruise ship accidents for the benefit our clients.

Medical Negligence Claim – Norwegian Cruise Line

Head Injury – Stairway Accident on Cruise Ship to Teen Boy

Severe Injuries – Stair Railing Accident on Cruise Ship

Herniated Disk – Result of Serious Fall on a Cruise Ship

aggressive representation for each and every client

Our Lawyers are Determined to Get You The Compensation You Deserve for Your Injury

The following are just a few results from the thousands of cases our cruise ship injury law firm has worked on over the last 35 years.

$5,500,000 for 14 year old boy who suffered a head injury in a fall on a stairway.

$2.4 Million for two passengers seriously injured in separate accidents when they fell over a stair railing.

$1.2 Million recovery for hair stylist on cruise ship who suffered a herniated disc from fall on negligently 
maintained stairway.

A federal jury awarded more than $2,000,000 in damages to a 47 year old passenger when Norwegian Cruise Line medical staff failed to properly treat him after a heart attack.

$550,000 for 51 year old diabetic man who had below knee amputation as the result of the alleged negligent medical care he received onboard the ship.

$450,000 for 54 year old man who suffered mild brain damage from the alleged negligence of a ship’s doctor in diagnosing and treating a stroke.

$410,000 for 43 year old man who broke his ankle from slip and fall on wet bathroom floor.

$950,000 for 11 year old who suffered a mild head injury in a fall on a stairway.

$225,000 for 58 year old woman who fractured her ankle from fall on wet stairs.

$212,500 for 39 year old woman who tore ligaments in her knee from fall on wet deck.

Cruise lawsuit settlement of $210,000 for 47 year old man who broke his ankle from fall on wet deck.

$192,500 for 74 year old woman who broke her wrist from slip and fall on wet deck.

Average Settlement Amounts from Cruise Ship Injury Lawsuits

For example, a teenage cruise ship passenger who stumbles, falls and breaks their arm in the cruise ship’s pool area may incur a variety of medical bills, but overall, this could be a minor injury. A 50 year old man who suffered the exact same injury may require a different set of medical procedures, a longer healing time, missed work opportunities and more.

Even what seems like a simple broken arm can results in a complicated set of details which impact your injury settlement. Your attorney will help you understand what’s involved in your case, often on the first phone call with the attorney. *These scenarios assume the cruise line was negligent in its actions or policies and that negligence was directly relate to your injuries.

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Was it a Simple Accident or Negligence?

Many accidents are simply ‘just accidents’ while other accidents are due to the negligence of the cruise line, its employees or even other entities associated with and promoted by the cruise line (like onboard medical personnel or excursion operators).

If you feel your injury was not your fault and are seeking a settlement to pay for medical bills or last wages, we invite you to call us today at 1-305-271-8282 for a free consultation.

Settlement of $185,000 for 56 year old man who broke his ankle in slip and fall on wet deck.

$185,000 for 55 year old woman who broke her ankle from slip & fall on wet stairs.

$185,000 for 58 year old woman who broke her leg from slip and fall on wet deck.

$175,000 for 72 year old woman who injured her shoulder from slip and fall on wet deck.

$150,000 cruise ship settlement for 61 year old woman who broke her wrist from slip and fall on wet deck.

$235,000 verdict on behalf of a 61 year old woman who tripped and fell over a threshold on the Bimini Superfast and broke her arm.

$300,000 for widow of 60 year old man who died at sea of heart failure for alleged negligence of ship’s doctor.

$325,000 cruise ship settlement for 74 year old woman who broke her hip from trip on drain cover.

$260,000 for 73 year old woman who suffered soft tissue injuries and head injury from trip over electrical wire.

Cruise lawsuit settlement for $150,000 for 70 year old woman who broke her hip from trip over base of stair.

$125,000 for 65 year old woman who broke her arm from trip over food tray in hallway.

$435,000 policy limits for 62 year old boat captain who was injured in fight with deck hand.

determining responsibility is our job

Are the cruise lines financially responsible for your injuries?

$2 Million+ recovery by settlement and verdict for multiple crewmembers, from many countries, injured in 
lifeboat drill on cruise ship.

$2 Million for crewmember who underwent unnecessary abdominal surgery without general anesthesia, resulting in permanent intestinal damage.

$900,000+ settlement for crewmember seriously injured as result of an assault by a fellow crewmember.

$800,000 for 36 year old man who suffered neck injury from negligently administered massage.

$375,000 for 49 year old man who suffered a back injury on a pool slide when struck from behind by another passenger.

$650,000 for widower of 64 year old woman who fractured her shoulder from fall into tender and later died after returning home from blood clot.

$20 Million in expected annuity payments for an infant child rendered paraplegic by a negligently performed medical procedure.

$1.8 Million settlement after favorable liability verdict for family of police officer who died several years 
after exposure to carbon monoxide during cargo ship rescue effort.

Our Cruise Injury Settlement Attorneys

At Waks and Barnett, P.A. , we make it a point to devote our full attention and resources to each of our clients. That begins with the first phone call and carries through until your case is resolved. This is the approach we’ve taken for over 35 years and across thousands of personal injury cases.

Our clients, who are often the victims of terrible accidents or utter negligence by the cruise lines, benefit from our dedication to their cases and the compassion and understanding we provide to them.

With our meticulous approach to casework and extensive experience dealing with personal injury claims – especially as it relates to maritime and cruise injury law – we can help you resolve your case in the most effective manner possible.

$3.2 Million guaranteed annuity payout for 11-year old boy rendered a paraplegic in an off road all-terrain vehicle accident in rural Virginia.

$1 Million policy limits for family of 40-year-old man who died as a result of the failure of an emergency room physician to recognize that he was having a heart attack.

$2,5000,00 settlement for 57 year old Grand Turk laborer who had his leg amputated in a workplace
 accident in Grand Turk.

$1,235,000 policy limits for widower of woman who died after being struck by a car.

$600,000 for leg injuries suffered by passenger in a car whose driver fell asleep and left the road.

$560,000 for teenage boy who suffered severe leg injury when improperly stacked hurricane shutters fell 
on him.

$300,000 settlement following favorable liability verdict for leg injuries suffered by county pool worker in a
 motorcycle accident.

$220,000 for 16 year old girl who lost tip of pinky finger while climbing windscreen on hotel pool deck.

$200,000 for 52 year old man who suffered neck injury from slip and fall on dog food in pet store.

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• Suing a cruise line? There are a boatload…

Suing a cruise line? There are a boatload of challenges unique to the industry

By Jenny B. Davis

June 1, 2020, 12:00 am CDT

Photo illustration by Elmarie Jara/Getty Images

Nestled between a colorful tangle of waterslide tubes and a wave-generating surfing simulator, the enormous yellow orb of the Sky Pad rose from the deck of Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas cruise ship like a “go” button waiting to be pressed.

The Sky Pad combined trampoline bouncing with bungee jumping, allowing those who entered its cavernous circular structure to defy gravity with every bounce. Optional virtual reality headsets let guests smash and speed through simulated candy landscapes and futuristic city streets while they jumped. The Sky Pad was just one of many high-octane attractions Royal Caribbean added to its 3,800-plus passenger Mariner of the Seas ocean liner during its $120 million makeover in 2018.

Casey Holladay remembers seeing a Royal Caribbean TV commercial promoting the new Sky Pad ride. An avid outdoorsman and sports enthusiast, Holladay, then age 25, recalled to an NBC 6 Miami news team that seeing the commercial made him excited to try this “awesome experience in the sky” during an upcoming Royal Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas with his girlfriend. And that’s exactly what he set out to do after they boarded the Mariner of the Seas in February 2019.

Holladay’s Sky Pad experience started off just as awesome as he had imagined. With his girlfriend recording him on her phone from the deck, Holladay bounced, twisted and soared against a background of clear blue sky. Suddenly, however, the unthinkable happened: The bungee cords holding Holladay snapped and spiraled away from him, sending him into a 20-foot free fall to the deck below.

An accident last year on the Sky Pad attraction on the Mariner of the Seas cruise ship (above) prompted a $10 million personal injury lawsuit against Royal Caribbean. Photo by MyLoupe/Universal Images Group via Getty Images; Jim Rassol/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service; Nora Tam/South China Morning Post via Getty Images

“I just felt the momentum release from my body that I wasn’t being held by anything anymore,” he told the news reporter. “All I really remember was the hit, and the noise, and then the fear.”

The fall caused Holladay to shatter his pelvis, and he sustained other injuries. He was hospitalized for nine days, had surgery and sustained permanent injuries that will require follow-up care for years, says his lawyer, Miami’s Brett Rivkind of Rivkind Margulies & Rivkind.

Holladay is suing Royal Caribbean for $10 million. Royal Caribbean did not return an email for comment, but in its answer to the lawsuit, the company denied liability and has requested a jury trial.

Holladay isn’t the only cruise ship passenger to have a dream vacation turn into a nightmare. In 2019 alone, heart-wrenching news reports involving cruise ships included the death of a toddler who fell out of an open ship window to the concrete dock below during a family cruise to Puerto Rico; an alcohol-fueled brawl on a cruise of Norwegian fjords that caused multiple injuries; the alleged rape of a 17-year-old British girl during a Mediterranean cruise; and the death of an Australian man who went overboard during a Caribbean cruise with his family.

But tragedies don’t just happen on board. Cruise ship passengers can be injured, attacked or killed on land, too, during shore excursions sold by the cruise lines that take place while the cruise ship is docked in a port.

Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Excursions can range from exclusive parties and island bus tours to extreme adventures such as parasailing, hang gliding and bungee jumping. Cruise ships have been sued in connection with a party held at a local bar that left a cruise ship passenger a tetraplegic, a deadly crash involving a tour bus filled with cruise ship passengers, and a fatal midair zip line collision between a husband and wife on their honeymoon cruise.

But when a cruise ship departs from a U.S. port, federal maritime law generally applies. Under maritime law, tort liability for injuries, illnesses and death is anchored by basic principles of negligence law requiring a duty to protect against a particular harm, a breach of that duty, proximate cause between the breach and the harm, and actual harm. But that’s where plaintiffs lawyers say the basic legal theories end and the complications begin.

Bringing a case against an ocean cruise line is challenging. Together, the industry’s big three—Carnival Corp., Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings— carried nearly 80% of all ocean cruise passengers, according to a 2018 report. Plaintiffs lawyers say these cases are highly specific and highly specialized, governed by myriad legal standards and subject to investigative challenges. It’s an area so unique, they say, that it’s easy for a novice lawyer to make an honest mistake that can permanently sink an otherwise meritorious case.

“There are different standards of proof, shorter statutes of limitations and more opportunities to get yourself in trouble,” says Deborah J. Gander, a partner at Colson Hicks Eidson in Coral Gables, Florida.

Deborah J. Gander: “There are different standards of proof, shorter statutes of limitations and more opportunities to get yourself in trouble.” Courtesy of Colson Hicks Eidson

Tonya J. Meister of Meister Law Firm in Miami agrees. “If you don’t know what you’re doing,” warns Meister, who is board-certified by the Florida Bar in maritime law, “you’re going to harm your client and make bad law.”

Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Princess Cruises (acquired in 2003 by Carnival) did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story.

Laws and limitations

The cruise industry is international. Ships are registered under flags of foreign countries and operated by companies incorporated in other foreign countries. Passengers and crew hail from points around the world and travel together to all points in between. So how do plaintiffs lawyers know where to file a lawsuit involving a cruise ship departing from an American port? It’s actually pretty simple: They look at the passenger’s cruise ticket.

All ocean cruise passenger tickets contain pages of fine print making up an extensive contract limiting the cruise line’s liability for everything from lost luggage to class action lawsuits. Included in this extensive laundry list of restrictions and responsibilities is a forum selection clause requiring all civil suits against the cruise line to be brought in a particular court. Booking the cruise and paying for the ticket is considered the passenger’s consent to the terms of the contract.

Tickets issued by Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian require passengers to file any civil case in the Southern District of Florida, a venue that encompasses Miami-Dade County. The reason, Gander says, is obvious: “While the major cruise lines are incorporated outside of the country, every executive of every major cruise line is headquartered in Miami, so it’s really a home-field advantage for these corporations.”

It may seem unfair to require plaintiffs to bring their lawsuits in a forum chosen by the defendant, especially when the forum choice was clearly made for the convenience of a defendant corporation rather than the convenience of an aggrieved person, who most likely lives far away. Nevertheless, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld cruise line forum selection clauses, most recently in the 1991 case Carnival Cruise Lines Inc. v. Shute . In that case, the high court ruled that the choice of Florida as a forum is not fundamentally unfair, and that the chosen Florida forum would neither deter passengers from pursuing a legitimate claim nor deprive them of access to a competent court.

The cruise passenger ticket also imposes its own statute of limitations on passenger claims. Maritime law generally provides a three-year statute of limitations for tort actions. When the tort involves a cruise ship, however, the passenger ticket terminology typically reduces the statute of limitations to just one year, with a notice requirement set at six months. As with the forum selection clause, courts have consistently upheld the validity of such restrictions where they are clearly stated and passengers have had the opportunity to read them, regardless of whether they have actually done so.

Plaintiffs lawyers say the law doesn’t make their job easy. Michael Winkleman of Miami’s Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman says the requirement to file within one year can complicate damages calculations such as determining the total amount of medical bills or assessing the extent of lasting injury. “Sometimes, we just have to file the case while the plaintiff is still undergoing medical treatment or recovering,” he says.

Meister says she’s even seen instances where the shortened statute of limitations has precluded cases entirely. The most common scenario is a passenger who’s injured on a cruise ship and decides to consult a local personal injury lawyer back home who doesn’t know about the shortened filing window. “I get a lot of phone calls from unfortunate souls who thought they had a regular injury claim and didn’t know they needed to give written notice within six months and file a suit in federal court within a year,” she says. “There’s nothing I can do to help them—they’ve blown it.”

Building a case

When bringing a cruise ship personal injury case, lawyers say it’s not just the law that’s different, it’s the investigative approach, too.

“When you have a car accident or a fall in a supermarket, you can easily just go down and investigate the scene,” Winkleman says. “But I can’t just go walk onto a cruise ship: I have to get clearance to have access, and generally that doesn’t happen unless I have already filed the lawsuit.”

Although Winkleman is based in Miami, it doesn’t necessarily mean the cruise ships he wants to inspect are there, too. Which means he must go wherever the ship is currently docked to be able to conduct his onboard investigation.

Michael Winkleman: “Sometimes, we just have to file the case while the plaintiff is still undergoing medical treatment or recovering.” Photo courtesy of Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman

Interviewing witnesses poses additional challenges, especially if the witnesses also happen to be crew members, Winkleman says. “The dynamic is, you have a lot of crew members from Third World countries where they would be making $1 a day, but on a cruise ship, they make $100 a day, so they are going to say whatever they have to in order to keep their jobs. Even the security guards have an interest in protecting the company—it’s an immediate adversarial relationship.”

But the challenges don’t disappear even when crew members cooperate, Rivkind says. Scheduling depositions of cruise ship employees can be especially challenging, he says, “because they’re on cruise ships that are moving from port to port.”

While the hurdles are many, Ira H. Leesfield, a partner at Miami’s Leesfield Scolero, points out one significant advantage when it comes to proving a case: cameras. “There are surveillance cameras everywhere on cruise ships,” he says. “A lot of times, we get the judge to force the surveillance, and we’ll have the incident right there on tape.”

There’s also digital data that can help a lawyer make a case, says Miami solo Robert L. Gardana, who has chaired the Florida Bar’s Admiralty Law Committee and served as chair of the admiralty law committee of the ABA’s Tort and Trial Lawyer Insurance Practice Section. Data from a ship’s GPS and automatic identification system—a maritime tracking system that shows the location of nearby vessels—can be critical, he says.

Photo courtesy of Robert L. Gardana

But Gardana stresses the importance of old-school document sleuthing, too, via the Freedom of Information Act request. Topping his must-request list: the FD-302 form used by FBI agents to summarize and make notes on interviews they conduct. “Often, the FD-302 form can help piece the puzzle together,” he says.

Investigating cases of sexual assault on cruise ships also has gotten easier thanks to the passage of the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010. The act established standards for crime scene preservation and required medical exams for victims that include evaluating the patient for trauma and preserving medical evidence. It also created an online database of cruise ship incident reports to make crime statistics accessible to the general public. Prior to 2010, foreign-flagged cruise lines were not required to report sexual or physical assaults to any U.S. government agency.

The importance of such statistics was recently reinforced in K.T. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. In this case, a minor female alleged she was gang raped in 2015 by a group of men who plied her with alcohol served by ship bartenders. She became “obviously drunk, disoriented” and “unstable” in full view of crew members and those monitoring security cameras. The July 2019 opinion by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, written by Chief Judge Ed Carnes for a three-judge panel, reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the case for failure to state a claim for negligence in failing to warn cruise ship passengers of the danger of sexual assault and failing to take action to prevent the assault.

But Carnes didn’t stop there. He also wrote a special concurrence to his own opinion where he took judicial notice of the Department of Transportation cruise line incident reports compiled pursuant to the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act of 2010 that included incidents that occurred on past Royal Caribbean cruises. “It would be absurd to suggest that a multibillion-dollar business like Royal Caribbean was not aware of congressional reports about the problem of sexual assault aboard its cruise ships,” he wrote.

Winkleman, who represents K.T., believes the opinion “provides a critical clarification of the law that cruise ships do have a duty to warn passengers of the risk of rape.”

Royal Caribbean did not respond to a request for comment on the case.

Restrictions on recovery

When it comes to damages for deaths, plaintiffs lawyers are united in their frustration with the Death on the High Seas Act, an admiralty law that governs the who, the how and the how much when a death occurs during a cruise beyond U.S. territorial waters.

Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson in 1920, DOHSA was originally intended to benefit widows and dependents of seamen who died while working on ships in international waters as a result of negligence, a wrongful act or unseaworthiness.

DOHSA applies to transportation passenger deaths that occur 3 or more nautical miles from the shore of the United States or in a foreign country. For cruise ship passengers, it is the exclusive applicable law, preempting both state law and maritime common law.

But DOHSA significantly restricts the amount and type of recovery that a decedent’s family can receive, no matter the amount of pain or suffering or the level of negligence or egregious conduct that caused the death. DOHSA only allows a family to recover pecuniary losses like funeral expenses, medical expenses and loss of inheritance.

Nonpecuniary losses such as the loss of care, comfort and companionship are specifically prohibited. That means there is no opportunity to recover for emotional distress, mental anguish, grief or the loss of consortium. DOHSA also prohibits any compensation for pain and suffering the decedent experienced before dying.

“One would think a death case would be a high-value case, but if it’s a death on the high seas, the claim can be worth peanuts,” Meister says.

Tonya J. Meister: “One would think a death case would be a high-value case, but if it’s a death on the high seas, the claim can be worth peanuts.” Photo by Eileen Escarda

But DOHSA is even more restrictive in its application to pecuniary recovery, Meister explains, because it calls for a different calculation for the value of life than is common in death cases on land and in territorial waters. Instead of simply calculating the loss of earnings, DOHSA calculations are based on the loss of net accumulation.

“It’s not what the total of what you were expected to earn over your estimated lifespan; it’s what you would have had left after you spent down your earnings,” she says.

If the passenger who dies is an older retired person who does not happen to be financially supporting anyone, Winkleman says that recovery could very well be limited to just funeral expenses.

Meister points out that it is possible to recover for emotional distress under DOHSA if the decedent’s spouse, child or parent was in the “zone of danger” when the death occurred. Merely witnessing a loved one die is not enough, she says, even if the situation is horrific, such as in the case of a medical emergency or an accident during an excursion. Rather, the claimant must be imperiled by the same danger or the same situation that causes the death of the loved one. “If you don’t have that, you don’t have a case,” she says.

In 2000, Congress acknowledged that DOHSA’s pre-World War II-era compensation model was outdated and amended it to allow for nonpecuniary recovery and to extend the jurisdiction from 3 to 12 miles off the country’s shore. Unfortunately for cruise ship passengers, however, the amendment applies only to commercial aviation passengers—a direct result, many plaintiffs say, of cruise industry influence.

“Any time there’s an effort to provide any fix, the pocketbook opens up,” Winkleman says. “They spend millions trying to keep DOHSA on the books, which, in my opinion, is money very well spent.”

In April 2019, U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) introduced a bill called Hammer’s Law to extend DOHSA’s updated provisions to cruise ship passengers.

The name is in honor of Christy and Larry Hammer, who died in a fire that broke out in their cabin during a riverboat cruise in Peru. A subsequent report from the Peruvian navy found multiple incidents of negligence by the cruise company, according to the senator’s press release.

The bill has a long road to becoming law, but precedent does not bode well for its success. The proposed Cruise Passenger Protection Act of 2017, which would have provided similar relief by requiring a uniform application of DOHSA, died in subcommittee at the close of 2018.

“Do I think it’s likely that it will be amended? I’m not holding my breath waiting,” Davies says. “The cruise lines are a powerful lobbying group against change, and the lobby group for change—the families of deceased passengers—is less organized and less powerful.”

As a result of DOHSA’s rigid restrictions, plaintiffs lawyers say they’ve been forced to turn away meritorious cases because the recovery wouldn’t be enough to justify the time and resources necessary to bring a claim.

“The genesis of this law was to promote American maritime commerce, not to give a ‘get out of jail card’ to the cruise lines,” Winkleman says. “This law is a nightmare, and it shouldn’t be on the books anymore.”

Despite the restrictions, plaintiffs lawyers say they’re willing to rise to the challenge on behalf of their clients, and that’s what makes it worth it.

“The cruise lines fight very hard, they have very smart lawyers both in-house and as outside counsel, and they don’t pay money to get rid of cases,” Meister says. “We try a lot of cases, and we settle a lot of cases; it just depends on the circumstances. In my experience, most cases settle, but I am always 100% ready for trial.”

See also: Coronavirus on board: Lawyer’s parents were trapped on a contaminated cruise ship

This article appeared in the June/July 2020 issue of the ABA Journal under the headline: “Rough Seas: Plaintiffs attorneys suing cruise lines must navigate a boatload of challenges unique to the industry.”

Jenny B. Davis, a former practicing lawyer, is a freelance writer based in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Watch CBS News

Passengers sue cruise lines, alleging COVID-19 negligence

By Khristopher J. Brooks

April 17, 2020 / 5:57 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Former passengers are suing Carnival-owned cruise lines and accusing company management and crew members of knowingly exposing them to coronavirus . In one case, the decision to continue boarding passengers caused a customer's death, lawyers representing a family said. 

The most recent case, filed this week , involves Susan and Michael Dorety of Texas, who boarded a Princess Cruise Line ship February 21. Michael Dorety became ill while on board, according to court documents. He later died from coronavirus complications and Susan contracted the disease COVID-19, said Rusty Hardin, a Houston lawyer representing the couple. 

"It is shocking to me that a cruise line that had just discharged coronavirus-infected passengers took on board a new group of passengers to then mingle with others who had been exposed," Hardin said in a statement, referencing the February  COVID-19 outbreak on a cruise ship  in Japan. "Princess had notice of the dangers. The Doretys did not." 

Missouri couple Debra and Michael Dalton are also suing Princess Cruise Lines. They allege the ship's crew members knew about the outbreak, but didn't do enough to safeguard them from exposure during their trip to Hawaii. Passengers "were simply asked to fill out a piece of paper confirming they were not sick" when boarding the ship, court documents state.

"Despite the knowledge and experience it had with the outbreak of the disease on the Diamond Princess just a mere three weeks prior to the February 21 cruise, Princess Cruise did not have proper screening protocol in place to minimize the risk of exposure of the disease to its passengers and crew," the lawsuit states. 

Carnival, which owns Princess and Costa cruise lines, did not return CBS MoneyWatch's requests for comment. 

Lawsuits are piling up as the cruise industry is suffering from the coronavirus pandemic 's impact on business. The U.S. Department of State has  advised Americans not to board cruise ships .  Fewer customers have  cost U.S. cruise lines nearly $750 million since January, according to company financial reports. 

Cruise lines were also left out of the nearly $2 trillion federal stimulus package, in part because they aren't technically U.S. companies. Carnival Corp., for instance, is based in Panama.

Still, passengers might have a tough time winning their cases, said Morningstar analyst Jaime Katz. That's because cruise lines make passengers sign a contract before boarding that releases them from certain liabilities, including death.

Courts typically ignore those clauses once a case goes before a judge, said Jeremiah Lowe, a San Diego lawyer representing Arizona couple James and Kelea Nevis in their lawsuit against Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. Lowe said those liability clauses are void once a ship docks at a U.S. port. 

"They continue to put them in their contracts, probably to discourage people from bringing lawsuits, but they are not being upheld," Lowe said. 

The Nevis  lawsuit alleges that crew members knew a passenger had coronavirus symptoms but didn't advise others to isolate themselves in their rooms. James and Kelea Nevis tested positive for COVID-19 after docking February 29 and are now at home recovering, Lowe said. 

Even after docking, the ship that carried the Nevises took another 20-day cruise with some of the same passengers from the previous voyage, the lawsuit alleges. Lowe called that decision a "systematic failure to protect passengers and the public at large." 

"You wonder at what point are the cruise liners going to figure out that you have to have protocols in place," he said. "I mean, they're common carriers, but really they're floating cities."

Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.

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Integrity First, Compassion, and Excellence in All We Do

Carnival Cruise Accident Lawyers

The United States’ Top-Rated Carnival Cruise Ship Accident Attorneys Won’t Stop Fighting for Our Client’s Right to Maximum Compensation

Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A. is the nation’s leading maritime firm handling cruise ship injury and sexual assault cases against Carnival Cruise Lines. With over 200 years of combined experience, our team of award-winning attorneys have successfully handled literally hundreds of cases against Carnival, on behalf of both passengers and crew members. If you’ve been injured while on a Carnival ship, let us put our wealth of maritime experience to work for you.

We’ve recovered more than $300 million dollars for our clients, and our relentless pursuit of justice has earned us the reputation as one of the most respected and successful law firms in the industry. Our firm is proud to have been named to “Best Law Firms”® by US News & World Report since 2016, with four of our attorneys named to “Best Lawyers”® 2016-2024. We understand how intimidating it can be for a victim to consider filing a lawsuit against Carnival as it is one of the world’s largest cruise lines, but they know our firm well, and know that they are in for a serious fight when we work to recover compensation that our clients are rightfully owed.

If you’ve been injured while on a Carnival ship, let us put our wealth of maritime experience to work for you and contact us for a free consultation today.

Partner With Experienced Maritime Attorneys To Get The Money You Deserve

We have successfully brought cases against Carnival and all of its subsidiaries for decades. We have attorneys licensed in Florida, California, and Washington state, allowing us to effectively handle cases against Carnival, Princess , Holland America , Seabourne , and other Carnival subsidiaries.

We have even been repeatedly successful in bringing claims against Carnival’s foreign subsidiaries, such as Costa Cruises. Taking legal action against foreign entities is complicated, but our award-winning team has the experience and dedication necessary to fight for the compensation our clients deserve.  We take great pride in our ability to successfully represent our clients around the globe.

Carnival describes itself as “The World’s Most Popular Cruise Line®.” However, the company has come under fire for allegedly providing meager pay and minimal benefits to crew members while requiring 14-hour shifts with no days off. The potential for injury among crew members is high under such conditions, and consequently, these over fatigued crewmembers may not be able to effectively provide a safe environment for passengers. Both cruise line workers and passengers need to know their rights if and when problems develop aboard a Carnival ship. With our decades of experience litigating cases against Carnival and its subsidiaries, look no further than us to obtain justice for your injury claim.

• Types of Cruise Ship Accidents on Carnival Cruise Lines
• See What Clients Have To Say
• Frequently Asked Questions
• What to Look for in a Carnival Cruise Line Attorney

Suing Carnival Cruise Lines: Reputation in the Industry

• Experience & Knowledge Suing Cruise Lines
• Carnival Cruise Lines Fleet

Successful Case Results Against Carnival Cruise Lines

Types of cruise ship accidents common on carnival cruise lines.

If you suffered an injury on a cruise ship, either as a crew member or a passenger, you might be entitled to compensation. Examples of situations where you may want to pursue a claim include:

• Cruise ship passenger injuries
• Crewmember injuries
• Cruise ship rape and assault
• Passenger disappearances
• Passenger overboard accidents
• Passenger drowning incidents
• Shore excursion injuries
• Cruise ship medical malpractice
• Flowrider accidents
• Cruise ship class actions

Whether or not you see your accident or the cause of your injuries listed above, contact our law firm as soon as possible to schedule a free consultation with a member of our award-winning team. No two accidents are alike, which is why working with an experienced maritime attorney is so essential: approaching each case with fresh eyes is essential to ensuring that each damage is identified, calculated, and fought for.

Maritime Injuries and the Statute of Limitations

The statute of limitations for most maritime injuries is three years from the date of the accident. However, disclaimers in most cruise ship tickets narrow that time to one year for passengers. This also includes a 6-month notice provision. This means that you need to act quickly to preserve your rights. It is important to speak with a cruise ship accident attorney as soon as possible after your accident so that you can make sure to file your claim on time.

See What Our Clients Have To Say

Cruise Ship Passenger Injury

I was very appreciative of the help that the law firm was able to do for me and my family …

Cruise Ship Crew Member Injury

Hello, my name is Bojan and I am from Serbia and I am an injured crew member. I’ve never had …

Frequently Asked Questions About Carnival Cruise Ships Accidents and Lawsuits

Keep in mind that the specifics of your situation will change the answers to these questions specifically, and the following are simply meant to give you a general idea of how we will work to find the unique answers to your case. The sooner you contact us, the sooner we will be able to begin working on your case.

How Much Is My Personal Injury Case Worth After an Accident on Carnival Cruise Ships?

It is difficult to say how much your personal injury case could be worth after an accident or injury on a Carnival cruise. Your attorney will need to carefully examine every way your life has been affected by your damages to calculate the value of your insurance and civil claims. Some types of damages, such as your medical expenses and personal property losses, may be covered by Carnival Cruise's insurance provider.

The experienced trial lawyers at Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A. will comprehensively evaluate your damages to determine your losses and maximize the value of your claim. With experienced counsel you will have a guide to determine the monetary value and obtain compensation for all losses. Commonly known as compensatory damages, these encompass several types of economic and non-economic damages, such as:

• Physical limitations
• Disfigurement
• Inconvenience
• Chronic pain
• Loss of consortium
• Embarrassment
• Diminished quality of life
• Loss of potential future earnings
• Medical expenses (past and future)
• Mental anguish
• Apprehension and anticipation
• Fear, shock, or indignity
• Reputational damage

Am I Required to Sign Any Paperwork That the Carnival Cruise Staff Presents Me Following an Accident on Board a Cruise?

Not necessarily. Even if carnival cruise staff requests you sign a liability release form or other documents, you are under no legal obligation to do so at this time. Instead, tell them that you will need to wait for your Carnival cruise ship accident attorneys at Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A. to review these documents before signing. Do not allow cruise ship representatives to bully you into signing documents you do not understand. Doing so could be devastating to your case.

When Should I Hire an Attorney if I Am Injured on a Carnival Cruise?

Injured cruise ship passengers should hire an experienced Carnival Cruise accident lawyer as soon as they have an opportunity. Your cruise ship injury lawyer can advocate for your rights every step of the way and protect you from being taken advantage of by profit-driven cruise lines, such as Carnival Cruise. Your personal injury law firm can handle investigating liability, calculating the value of your claim, and identifying all parties who have contributed to your injuries. We can also negotiate with insurance companies to ensure you have access to total reimbursement of your losses.

If I’m Injured in a Cruise Accident, Who Is Responsible?

The way in which your injuries occurred will determine who is responsible for compensating you for your damages. In many instances, Carnival Cruise lines can be held accountable for the injuries their guests sustain if the cruise line violates their duty of care. However, cruise line managers, crew members, cruise passengers, and equipment manufacturers, and distributors could also be held accountable based on these specific details of your case. For example, if a handrail was improperly installed and you slipped and fell overboard when the banister gave out, banister installers, producers, and manufacturers could share the blame. Only an in-depth investigation will reveal the identities of those liable for your losses.

What Safety Measures Is a Cruise Ship Common Carrier Responsible For Providing Me?

Carnival Cruise lines and other cruise ships have an obligation to provide specific accommodations and safety measures as common carriers. Some examples of these accommodations and safety measures include:

• Sufficient fire protection
• Adequate flooring surfaces and walkways, free of debris and hazards
• Signage and assistance in navigating unexpected obstacles and hazards
• Ensuring the watercraft is stable
• Hiring competent cruise line staff
• Having life-saving and firefighting equipment aboard
• Having adequate medical care on board consistent with industry standards
• Following stability protocol and other safe navigation regulations
• Providing sanitary and safe food services
• Environmental protection responsibilities

What Information Do I Need to File a Cruise Ship Injury Claim?

Liability must be proven based on a preponderance of the evidence and cruise ship accident and personal injury claims. This means the evidence obtained and submitted must be compelling. Some examples of such evidence could include:

• Photos of your injuries or the damage at the scene of the cruise ship accident
• Video of how the accident occurred
• Copies of the cruise line’s safety inspection records
• Copies of Carnival Cruise's employment records
• The names of any cruise ship staff who were at the accident scene
• Witness statements and contact information

How Long Do I Have to File a Cruise Ship Accident Lawsuit?

Pursuant to most cruise line passenger ticket contracts, you will have six months from the date of your injury to provide written notice of your claim to the cruise line and one year from the date of the accident to file a claim against the cruise line, such as Carnival Cruise Line. Note that the cruise line passenger ticket contract (which mandates the six-month notice requirement and one year statute of limitations), shortens the general maritime personal injury and death statute of limitations, which is three years, provided under federal maritime laws. This is one example of why you need to hire experienced cruise injury lawyers like Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A. Entrusting your case to a general personal injury lawyer who is unfamiliar with cruise industry practices can result in you missing critical dates, important laws, and crucial industry information which can jeopardize your claim!

How Do I File a Carnival Cruise Line Ship Accident Lawsuit?

You do not necessarily need to file a lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Line to access the compensation you are entitled to. However, if Carnival does not have adequate insurance coverage to meet your needs or is refusing to compensate you fairly for your damages, you can work with an experienced Carnival cruise accident lawyer at our personal injury law firm to help you file a lawsuit against them. After investigating the cause of your accident and identifying the liable parties, we will have a better idea of how to best approach your case.

Our Experienced Carnival Cruise Ship Attorneys Serve Miami and Other Locations Across the U.S.

Our Carnival cruise ship accident attorneys at Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A. are proud to serve injury victims across the world. We have built our firm with accident survivors and their families in mind. We strategically placed our eight office locations near and around Carnival cruise ship harbors so we would be easily accessible to cruise ship accident victims immediately after suffering life-threatening or critical injuries.

When you need a trusted Carnival cruise ship law firm on your side, look no further than our experienced maritime accident and personal injury lawyers at Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A., at one of the following locations:

FLORIDA – HEADQUARTERS 2800 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Suite 1480 Coral Gables, FL 33134 (888) 572-6185

FLORIDA: 9560 SW 107th Ave, Suite 207 Miami, FL 33176 (888) 723-3048

GEORGIA: 3379 Peachtree Road NE Suite 760 Atlanta, GA 30326 (888) 912-2405

WASHINGTON: 1325 Fourth Ave. Suite 1744 Seattle, WA 98101 (877) 657-9426

TEXAS: 5020 Montrose Boulevard Suite 700 Houston, TX 77006 (877) 420-8245

COLORADO: Vail (888) 987-6409

HAWAII: Maui (877) 421-2980

If your Carnival cruise accident injuries occurred in another location, do not feel discouraged. Our team of cruise ship accident lawyers is prepared to guide you through the claims process no matter where you are located. We can schedule a virtual consultation to discuss the specific circumstances of your case and determine what your next steps should be.  And remember all Carnival passenger cases must be filed in Miami, Florida, our global headquarters.

What to Look for in a Carnival Cruise Lines Lawyer

Cruising is a billion-dollar industry, which means that cruise lines have deep pockets to fight lawsuits and decades of experience handling liability claims against them. Cruise lines also have many tactics for avoiding liability, such as adding extensive disclaimers to their tickets. Add to that the fact that maritime law governs most lawsuits relating to cruise ships, and you’re left with a highly complex area of law.

Not just any attorney can handle a cruise ship case. You need an attorney well-versed in maritime law and years of experience in the industry. As you consider hiring a cruise ship attorney, keep the following factors in mind:

Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A.’s cruise ship lawyers are nationally and internationally renowned. When major news outlets need commentary or analysis regarding cruise ship incidents, they call our attorneys. We have been featured on over 100 nationally broadcast television programs, such as FOX News, The Today Show, Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning.

We have also received numerous accolades from preeminent organizations, such as Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers, the International Seafarers Union, and The National Trial Lawyers Top 100. Most recently, Charles R. Lipcon was named “Lawyer of the Year”® in Admiralty & Maritime by  US News & World Report  (2020)- Miami. They have also listed us as a Best Law Firm every year since 2016.

Experience & Knowledge Suing Carnival Cruise Lines

Our attorneys have the experience and knowledge to hold Carnival Cruise Line accountable. We have repeatedly demonstrated our skill in complex maritime cases where victims have sustained severe injuries or died while aboard a cruise ship or a shore excursion.

Our firm has been helping cruise ship accident victims for nearly 50 years, and our team of 16 attorneys has over 200 years of combined experience. While we operate primarily out of Miami, Florida, we have offices across the country, and we represent clients from all over the world. We have even appeared in courtrooms in other countries, and we can assist clients who speak many different languages.

Further, we have led the way in many landmark decisions that have helped define the law in cruise ship cases. For example, in Carlisle v. Carnival Corporation, we successfully argued to the Florida Court of Appeal that a cruise line could be held vicariously responsible for the medical malpractice of the ship’s doctor concerning a passenger. This marked a shift in the law , and the federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit eventually adopted the rule in 2014.

If you want a cruise ship attorney with unparalleled experience, you need to look no further than Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A.

Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A., has recovered over $300 million dollars for our clients. We have successfully represented hundreds of clients suing Carnival Cruise Line, including seamen, crewmembers, electricians, engineers, captains, passengers, and others hurt aboard Carnival ships. The following cases illustrate a few examples of our successes against Carnival.

Caraffa v. Carnival Cruise Line - $3.6 million jury verdict

Nunez v. carnival cruise line - $575,000 jury verdict, rodriguez v. carnival cruise line - $525,000 jury verdict.

We could easily list literally hundreds more successful Carnival cases, but the cruise industry invariably requires confidentiality clauses which prevent us from disclosing the details of the settlements.

Carnival’s Fleet

Carnival has 24 ships, and the company boasts each “features its own unique twist on Carnival-style fun.” These ships include:

• Carnival Vista, which cruises the Caribbean
• Carnival Breeze, which cruises the Caribbean
• Carnival Sunshine, which cruises Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean
• Carnival Magic, which cruises Bermuda, Canada, New England, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and Transatlantic
• Carnival Conquest, which cruises the Caribbean and the Bahamas
• Carnival Dream, which cruises the Caribbean
• Carnival Ecstasy, which cruises the Bahamas
• Carnival Freedom, which cruises Alaska, the Caribbean, and the Panama Canal
• Carnival Sensation, which cruises the Caribbean and the Bahamas
• Carnival Sunrise, which cruises the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and the Panama Canal
• Carnival Valor, which cruises the Caribbean and Transatlantic
• Carnival Pride, which cruises the Caribbean, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Panama Canal
• Carnival Glory, which cruises the Caribbean and the Panama Canal
• Carnival Radiance, which cruises Bermuda, Canada, New England, the Caribbean, Europe, Panama Canal, Bahamas, and transatlantic trips
• Carnival Splendor, which cruises Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific
• Carnival Liberty, which cruises the Bahamas
• Carnival Elation, which cruises the Bahamas and the Caribbean
• Carnival Paradise, which cruises the Caribbean
• Carnival Legend, which cruises the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Caribbean, Europe, the Panama Canal, and Transatlantic
• Carnival Miracle, which cruises Alaska, Mexico, and Hawaii
• Carnival Panorama, which cruises Mexico
• Carnival Mardi Gras, which cruises the Caribbean
• Carnival Horizon, which cruises the Caribbean
• Carnival Spirit, which cruises Alaska, Asia, Australia, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, South Pacific, and Transpacific

Coming 2022: Carnival Celebration

Setting sail from Miami in 2022 to celebrate Carnival’s 50th anniversary, the Celebration is a cutting-edge ocean liner boasting 19 decks, countless activities, extensive dining options, and a range of destinations. Each new ship is an exciting opportunity for enthusiasts to have different memorable cruises, but there will never be a ship that guarantees each passenger will be safe from harm. If you or a loved one is hurt aboard the Celebration or any other Carnival cruise liners, we are here to help you get the money you deserve.

Carnival Recently Retired Fleet

Carnival retired four ships in 2020, the first to be retired since 2009 when the Holiday class was retired:

• Carnival Fantasy
• Carnival Fascination
• Carnival Imagination
• Carnival Inspiration

If you were injured on a ship that has since been retired, your legal rights do not necessarily change.  However, contact us immediately as passengers generally only have one year to bring a claim, while crewmembers have three years. Request your free consultation as soon as possible to ensure that you are not limited by time restrictions in your fight for the money you deserve.

You Deserve Safety and Security on Any Carnival Cruise Ship

No matter the ship and the destination, every passenger and crew member is entitled to the ship to be reasonably safe for them. If there is a failure on the part of Carnival Cruise Line to offer a safe traveling environment, both on the ship and off, crew members and passengers may pursue a claim for damages.

Simply stated, a cruise line must provide reasonable care under the circumstances. So whether it is a wet floor, a broken lounge chair, or a dangerous shore excursion, the analysis for liability is often similar: Did the cruise line act reasonably under the circumstances?

If You’re Injured or Assaulted Aboard Carnival Cruise Lines We Will Be by Your Side Demanding Justice

If tragedy strikes and you were a victim of rape or sexual assault or any of the many injuries that could occur while traveling or working aboard a Carnival cruise ship, an experienced maritime attorney can help.

Our firm has been operating for over 50 years, and has recently recovered over $300 million dollars on behalf of our clients, handled landmark cases that have changed the landscape of maritime law, made hundreds of guest appearances on the world’s biggest news programs as experts on maritime and cruise law, and have received countless accolades and awards, including being named to “Best Law Firms”® by US News & World Report since 2016.

When you’re working with Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A., you can be confident that there is a team of aggressive, experienced attorneys who are fighting for the compensation and justice you rightfully deserve. Contact Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, P.A. today to learn more about the assistance our experienced attorneys can offer you.

Call (888) 233-1238 to schedule a consultation or contact us online.

Other Companies Sued

• American Seafoods
• Antillean Marine Shipping Corp.
• Azamara Cruise Lines
• Celebrity Cruise Lines
• Costa Cruise Lines
• Crowley Maritime Corporation
• Crystal Cruises
• Cunard Line
• Disney Cruise Line
• Holland America Line
• Icicle Seafoods, Inc.
• Island Queen Cruises
• Maersk Lines Limited
• Margaritaville at Sea
• MSC Cruises USA
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Federal court lifts CDC COVID rules for Florida-based cruise ships amid legal fight

MIAMI — Pandemic restrictions on Florida-based cruise ships are no longer in place under a ruling Friday by a federal appeals court, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seek to fight a Florida lawsuit challenging the regulations.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had temporarily blocked a previous ruling last Saturday that sided with Florida officials, but the court reversed that decision on Friday, explaining that the CDC failed to demonstrate an entitlement to a stay pending appeal.

Last weekend's temporary stay had kept the CDC regulations regarding Florida-based cruise ships in place while the CDC appeals the June decision by U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday. Those regulations can no longer be enforced but can still be used as guidelines.

The lawsuit, championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, claims that the CDC's multiple-step process to allow cruising from Florida is overly burdensome, harming both a multibillion-dollar industry that provides some 159,000 jobs and revenue collected by the state.

In court filings, attorneys for Florida had urged the 11th Circuit to reject the CDC request to keep its rules intact.

"The equities overwhelmingly favor allowing the cruise industry to enjoy its first summer season in two years while this Court sorts out the CDC's contentions on appeal," Florida's lawyers argued.

►Have insurance, will cruise: Taking Carnival from Florida but don't want to get vaccinated? Buy travel insurance

►How much is too much?  This cruise sold fares starting at $73k. It sold out in less than 3 hours.

The CDC, however, said keeping the rules in place would prevent future COVID-19 outbreaks on ships that are vulnerable to the spread of the virus because of their close quarters and frequent stops at foreign ports. 

"The undisputed evidence shows that unregulated cruise ship operations would exacerbate the spread of COVID-19, and that the harm to the public that would result from such operations cannot be undone," the CDC said in a court filing.

The CDC first flatly halted cruise ships from sailing in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which had affected passengers and crew on numerous ships.

Then the CDC on Oct. 30 of last year imposed a four-phase conditional framework it said would allow the industry to gradually resume operations if certain thresholds were met. Those included virus mitigation procedures and a simulated cruise to test them before embarking regular passengers.

Merryday's decision concluded that the CDC can't enforce those rules for Florida-based ships and that they should merely be considered nonbinding recommendations or guidelines. Several cruise lines have begun preliminary cruises under those guidelines, which the Tampa judge agreed with Florida are too onerous.

"Florida persuasively claims that the conditional sailing order will shut down most cruises through the summer and perhaps much longer," the judge wrote in June, adding that Florida "faces an increasingly threatening and imminent prospect that the cruise industry will depart the state."

Disney Cruise Lines held its first simulated sailing under CDC rules last Saturday when the Disney Dream departed from Port Canaveral, Florida. The passengers were volunteer Disney employees.

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

Carnival Cruise Line owes rape victim $10 million, jury says

A miami jury determined that a former crew member sexually assaulted a woman in 2018.

A jury in a federal court in Miami found that Carnival Cruise Line owes more than $10 million to a woman who claimed that a crew member raped her during a 2018 cruise.

The verdict delivered Tuesday in the Southern District of Florida determined that as a Carnival employee, Fredy Anggara committed sexual assault against a woman who filed a lawsuit in 2019 as a Jane Doe. The jury found Carnival liable for $243,000 of past and future medical and psychological expenses and $10 million of additional damages for physical and emotional distress.

“It’s my understanding it is the largest verdict ever” for “a sexual assault victim against a major cruise line,” said Daniel Courtney, the lawyer for the woman who filed the suit. Both the woman and Carnival Corporation can file motions to seek a different payment. Courtney said that process could drag on for years.

The jury found that Carnival was not negligent in the assault and that Anggara did not intentionally inflict emotional distress upon the plaintiff. Carnival released a written statement saying it denies the allegations in the lawsuit and intends to appeal the decision.

“The crew member admitted that he had a consensual sexual encounter with the guest which is consistent with an investigation by the FBI that concluded the encounter was consensual,” Carnival said in a statement. The FBI did not bring criminal charges against Anggara, Courtney said, and the lawsuit did not name him as a defendant.

Courtney said his client was “heavily intoxicated” and “concussed” at the time of the alleged rape because she hit the back of her head during a fall. “To say that it’s consensual is really hurtful to her,” Courtney said.

Is cruising safe? Most of the time but beware of what can go wrong.

According to Carnival’s statement, the company fired Anggara after the incident was reported because it has a zero-tolerance policy for “crew fraternization with guests.”

“The safety and security of Carnival guests is paramount,” the statement said. “Carnival complies with all applicable rules and regulations for security and guest safety, including the U.S. Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act and U.S. Coast Guard requirements. Carnival is also Rainn-certified and follows its guidelines for handling and investigating alleged sexual assaults.”

The case falls under federal jurisdiction according to general maritime law. The Washington Post does not identify victims of alleged sex crimes. According to the civil complaint filed in Miami, the incident took place aboard the Carnival Miracle on Dec. 1, 2018, when the plaintiff was 21 years old. The lawsuit states it was her first cruise.

Anggara was waiting for the plaintiff while she walked up a flight of stairs by herself, the lawsuit said, at which point he locked her in a maintenance closet and raped her. Immediately afterward, the lawsuit said, the plaintiff went to her room, told her friend what happened and “started hyperventilating and having panic attacks.”

The plaintiff reported the alleged assault to Carnival staffers, then submitted to a rape kit and interviews with ship security and FBI agents, according to the civil complaint.

The lawsuit claimed Carnival was liable for the rape because it failed to monitor dark public areas of the ship where women could be vulnerable to assaults. It said the company should have exercised a level of reasonable care for guests because “on board its cruise ships there have been numerous assaults, batteries, sexual assaults and batteries, rapes, and attacks perpetrated by crew on passengers.”

Federal agency stops reporting coronavirus cases on cruise ships

In court documents responding to questions from Carnival’s representation, the plaintiff described how the alleged assault changed her life. “I have depressive episodes,” she said in the documents. “I suffer from anxiety especially in public. It has affected how intimate I am with a person.”

“At my lowest point I thought of killing myself,” she said in the documents. “I had a plan. I went around to visit my friends and created memories for them to remember me. I also wrote everyone notes. I was hospitalized.”

In statistics kept by the Transportation Department showing allegations of criminal activity on ships that embark and disembark passengers in the United States, sexual assault is the top offense. There were 82 allegations in 2018 and 101 in 2019. The pandemic forced a halt to cruise ships sailing in March 2020, and the agency has not updated the reports since cruise ships started sailing again.

Attorney Michael Winkleman said his firm, Lipcon Margulies & Winkleman, handles a “huge” number of sexual assault cases on behalf of cruise passengers. He did not work on the Carnival lawsuit that was decided this week. “I always say it’s a hidden epidemic at sea,” he said. He pointed to the lack of independent law enforcement on ships and an abundance of alcohol as contributing factors.

“You’ve got these unlimited drink packages that are on all the cruise lines,” Winkleman said. “It’s just a recipe for people just dramatically being overserved, dramatically consuming too much alcohol, and that’s when bad things happen.” He said most such cases result in confidential settlements. “It is somewhat atypical for a case to go all the way to trial like this did, and I think the result is a significant result,” he said.

Cruise industry officials have insisted over the years that allegations of serious crime on ships are rare, pointing to a commissioned report comparing rates of violent crimes at sea and on land.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

More cruise news

Living at sea: Travelers on a 9-month world cruise are going viral on social media. For some travelers, not even nine months was enough time on a ship; they sold cars, moved out of their homes and prepared to set sail for three years . That plan fell apart, but a 3.5-year version is waiting in the wings.

Passengers beware: It’s not all buffets and dance contests. Crime data reported by cruise lines show that the number of sex crimes has increased compared to previous years. And though man-overboard cases are rare, they are usually deadly .

The more you know: If you’re cruise-curious, here are six tips from a newcomer. Remember that in most cases, extra fees and add-ons will increase the seemingly cheap price of a sailing. And if you happen to get sick , know what to expect on board.

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Cruise Ship Injury Lawyer

If you suffered any injures or caught a serious disease on a cruise ship, you could have legal recourse and might be able to recover compensation for your medical bills and your suffering.

There can be many different types of accidents on a cruise ship, including slip and falls due to tripping hazards and spills. Outbreaks of illnesses, such as COVID-19, can lead to severe health implications for victims, including death. Passengers can also suffer from extensive injuries, or die, when a ship has a disastrous accident, such as a grounding, collision, or large-scale fire. Occasionally, passengers fall overboard a cruise ship. Accidents can also happen in any of the cruise ships’ amenities such as the pool, gym, or climbing walls, potentially resulting in serious and life-changing injuries.

If you suffered injuries in a cruise ship accident that was not your fault, for example, if you hurt yourself on a faulty piece of equipment or broke a bone from slipping on a wet floor, you could have legal recourse. However, filing a claim against a cruise line can be challenging. With an accident at sea, maritime laws may apply that can complicate any personal injury or wrongful death claims. A cruise ship injuries lawyer can help determine whether you have a case.

Contact Pintas & Mullins Law Firm today for a free case review at (800) 917-8989 .

Are Cruise Lines Responsible for Passengers’ Injuries?

Generally, a cruise line may be responsible for your injuries if you are able to prove that the injuries happened due to the cruise line’s negligence. The cruise lines, including the captain and crew on a ship, owe a duty of care to passengers. If the duty is breached and this breach caused your accident and injuries, you may have a case against the cruise line.

You could also potentially have a case against other liable parties, for example, a charter company, ticketing agency, or a third-party operator such as an onshore tour agency working with the cruise line.

Types of accidents where a cruise ship may have been negligent can include:

• Slips and falls on deck
• Swimming pool accidents
• Infectious diseases
• Accidents while on a cruise line shore trip
• Gangway or tender boat accidents
• Food poisoning
• Physical or sexual assault by crewmembers
• Falling overboard
• Injuries suffered in catastrophic events such as a grounding or fire

A cruise line or staff can be negligent in many ways. Staff may not mop up spills promptly or remove tripping hazards such as cables on the floor, causing a slip and fall accident.

There may be inadequate maintenance of equipment in passengers’ common areas and amenities, which can result in an accident. When exiting the ship, the gangway can be too steep, faulty, or slippery. Getting on a tender boat in rough weather can also be dangerous for passengers.

If cruise line oversight or staff negligence contributed to your illness or injury, you could potentially hold the cruise line responsible for your damages, such as medical bills and others. In practice, it can be tricky to hold a cruise line to account with a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit, as different laws and regulations come into effect on the high seas.

United States law does not always apply. You may not understand what your options are and how to get justice by holding a cruise line responsible for your injuries.

Since there are a number of variables when it comes to cruise ship liability with personal injury and wrongful death cases, it can be helpful for you to consult with a cruise ship injury lawyer. Pintas & Mullins Law Firm can advise you on your legal options for holding a cruise line to account and can fight for you in court. Call us today for a free consultation to determine whether you have a case.

A cruise line can be responsible for passengers’ injuries if they acted negligently in causing or contributing to an accident. A cruise line has a number of responsibilities towards passengers, including ensuring that any ship machinery and equipment is seaworthy. The crew must be adequately trained and qualified to perform their job functions. The decks and common areas should be free of hazards.

If you suffered injuries while on a cruise and can prove that the cruise line’s negligence contributed to or caused your or your loved one’s injuries or death, you might be able to file a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against the cruise line.

In a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit, you could recover compensation for your medical bills, future medical bills, lost wages, funeral expenses, and other economic damages. Depending on your case, you could also receive compensation for any noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering or loss of life enjoyment.

Contacting a cruise ship lawyer can be a good way to find out how to get justice and compensation if you have suffered any injuries due to negligence on a cruise ship.

Proving Your Case

Having an accident on a cruise ship and getting injured is not necessarily the cruise line’s or cruise staff’s fault. However, in certain cases, a cruise line is responsible for passengers’ injuries. In order to have a chance of recovering any compensation in a cruise ship accident, you will have to prove that the cruise line was negligent. Some of the ways in which a cruise line could potentially be liable include, among others:

• Lack of handrails
• Debris such as food and beverages spilled on floors
• Uneven or damaged carpeting
• Tripping hazards such as cleaning utensils or cables in common areas
• Inadequate and defective lighting
• No warning signs for steps, thresholds, and wet floors

The cruise line, including the captain and staff, have the overall responsibility to ensure the comfort and safety of passengers. Furthermore, in order to have a case against a cruise line, you will have to prove the following elements:

• The cruise line owes you a duty of care.
• The duty of care was breached.
• Your injuries are a result of that breach.
• Your damages carry a dollar value.

You Can Hold a Cruise Line Responsible for Your Injuries

While slips and falls onboard and ashore are some of the more common accidents on cruise ship vacations, according to International Maritime Health , there can be many other accidents and injuries that a cruise line could be responsible for.

Potentially, a cruise line could be held liable for any injuries happening in their pools or other amenities due to faulty equipment, lack of maintenance, or other reasons. A cruise line could also be responsible for any accidents with tender boats or involving the gangway. If the ship is lacking proper hygiene and cleanliness procedures, the cruise line could potentially also be held to account for the spreading of infectious diseases such as norovirus, foodborne pathogens, or respiratory infections such as influenza and coronavirus.

While a cruise line likely will fight any such claims vigorously, having a cruise ship lawyer by your side can help you through the complicated aspects of taking a cruise line to court.

What Are Common Cruise Ship Injuries?

Cruise ship accidents and injuries can occur in many different situations, such as a rolling ship in bad weather, mechanical failure, material defects, lack of food hygiene, and failure to maintain common areas, among many others.

According to a three-year study of cruise ships, published in a journal called International Maritime Health , most victims suffered slip and fall injuries on the ship and onshore. Almost 50% of injuries aboard were slips and falls. Onshore, slips and falls counted for almost 70% of accidents. Other accidents and injuries seen on cruise ships can include:

Fractures and Bone Breaks

With slips and falls, or elevator injuries, passengers on cruise ships can suffer extensive injuries such as fractures and head traumas. The cruise line is responsible for keeping common areas free of tripping hazards and spills to minimize the risk of falls.

Unfortunately, pool accidents and drownings can happen on cruise ships. Inadequate maintenance of facilities or faulty equipment can be to blame.

Food Poisoning

If galley and wait staff do not observe adequate hygiene and safe handling of food, passengers can suffer from foodborne illnesses. Food poisoning can have serious consequences, particularly for the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.

Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Infectious disease outbreaks affecting many passengers can occur with a lack of hygiene and cleanliness. Serious diseases can spread like wildfire if staff fails to isolate and quarantine passengers effectively, such as what we have seen with COVID-19 outbreaks on ships recently.

Cruise ships typically have a medical facility and doctor on board. However, the medical personnel onboard may lack qualifications and training, and may not even be licensed to work in the United States. Injuries or medical conditions can be misdiagnosed and treated inappropriately, potentially leading to injury, worsening conditions, and death.

There can be many other accidents and injuries on cruise ships. Potentially, a cruise ship can be a dangerous place with toxic chemicals on board, as well as an incinerator. Sailing on the high seas is not without dangers as collisions and groundings, although thankfully infrequent, can happen any time.

Suffering any serious injuries or illnesses on what should have been a pleasurable vacation can be frustrating and upsetting, especially when the accident occurred through cruise line negligence. If you are thinking of holding a cruise line to account for your injuries or your loved one’s death, do not waste valuable time and contact Pintas & Mullins Law Firm to see how a cruise ship injuries lawyer can help you.

Other types of cruise ship injuries

Incidents seen on cruise ships can result in a variety of injuries to passengers. A ship can suffer from any of these problems:

• Technical failure
• Bad weather
• Lack of safe food handling
• Lack of cleanliness and hygiene
• Inadequate infection control

This, together with the possibilities of accidents during excursions, can lead to various injuries, for example, bone fractures, concussions, spine injuries, organ damage, and others. Infections can also easily spread on cruise ships, including the coronavirus.

If you have suffered an injury on a cruise, you could potentially recover compensation for medical bills and other related costs.

For a free legal consultation with a Cruise Ship Injury Lawyer Lawyer serving nationwide, call (800) 917-8989

Can You Sue if You Are Injured on a Cruise Ship?

You might be able to sue a cruise line for any damages that you incurred with an injury, as long as you can prove that the cruise line, staff, or a third party acted negligently. This negligence must have contributed to or caused your accident and injuries, as well as your damages.

However, the cruise lines, in an effort to deter any claims, try to make it difficult for passengers to sue them. Passengers typically sign a ticket contract with the cruise line, which includes waivers for liability in the event of any untoward circumstances or accidents onboard. While this can make it harder for you to initiate legal action, the contracts do not always stand up in a court of law.

The cruise line most likely will also include a clause about a statute of limitations in their ticket contract, shortening the amount of time that you can file suit. In addition, passengers may have to give the cruise line notice of intended legal action within six months of the injury.

Jurisdiction to file a claim can also add to the complexities, as it can depend on which flag a cruise ship sails under. United States Maritime Law , as well as other local and international laws, may also apply. However, despite these potential complications and pitfalls, you could still be able to successfully sue a cruise line.

Under the Shipping Act of 1984 , cruise ships have a heightened responsibility to keep passengers safe. If they neglected that responsibility, you might have a case.

Generally, in order to have a personal injury or wrongful death case, you will have to prove the following elements:

• The cruise line owed you a duty of care.
• You suffered injuries or the death of your loved one due to the breach.
• The injuries or death caused financial damages.

You can review the ticket contract you signed with the cruise line and find out which time limit applies to your case as a good first step.

Do not forget that help is available. A lawyer who knows the laws around cruise ships can assist you with proving negligence and building a case on your behalf.

However, do not hesitate or wait too long if you suffered injuries in an accident on a cruise ship. It can be in your best interests to act quickly if you intend to sue, giving your lawyer time to research your case, and ensuring that you are well within any deadlines set by your ticket contract.

If you or a loved one suffered any injuries in a cruise ship accident, you could potentially sue and receive compensation for your injuries and expenses related to any injuries. However, you do not necessarily have legal recourse just because an accident happened, you suffered injuries, and incurred medical expenses.

Generally, you can sue if you are injured on a cruise ship, but you will have to prove that the cruise line was negligent, and that this negligence contributed to or caused your accident, your injuries, and any monetary damages you incurred.

Accidents on Cruise Ships

There can be many risks potentially leading to accidents, injuries, and diseases on cruise ships. Living in close quarters and eating buffet-style food can contribute to any respiratory or foodborne diseases spreading unchecked on a cruise ship, particularly when hygiene and cleanliness on board are lacking.

Slip and fall accidents are one of the most common cruise ship accidents, according to International Maritime Health . This is hardly surprising when you consider that decks can be wet and slippery from rain or spilled beverages.

Occasionally, more dramatic accidents happen on cruise ships, leading to catastrophic injuries and deaths of passengers. We would rather not think about it when we board a beautiful ship with all of its pools, glitzy bars, and numerous amenities, but cruise ships can and do sink. Cruise ships can also ground or suffer from large-scale fires and collisions. From 1972 to 2011, almost 100 cruise ships have run aground, according to the New York Times .

While some of these accidents can be merely inconvenient to passengers, causing their vacation to end abruptly, some accidents do come with considerable loss of life. 32 passengers died when the Costa Concordia cruise ship sank off the coast of Italy in 2012.

All travel arguably comes with risk and often the travelers acknowledge that accidents can and will happen for various reasons. However, you can potentially sue if you are injured on a cruise ship if your accident happened due to negligence of a cruise line or third party.

Suing a Cruise Line

Even if you can prove that your accident happened due to negligence of the cruise line, you could face an uphill battle trying to sue. Cruise lines have become skillful in evading responsibility for any accidents or untoward circumstances on their ships, by issuing passengers with a contract when selling a ticket. This contract releases the cruise line from a number of liabilities in the event of any accidents and disasters.

Passengers automatically accept these contracts when they buy a ticket. You can usually find the details of the contract in the small print on your ticket. Unfortunately, the contracts can be notoriously restrictive and curtail the rights of passengers who want to seek compensation for their injuries. They can also be lengthy and complicated to read.

Unfortunately, the laws are also not exactly working in favor of any plaintiffs searching for justice and compensation. The Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims , to name just one example of international maritime law, can limit the claims of plaintiffs in wrongful death and injury cases against a cruise line or vessel operator. Although many ships are owned by U.S. companies, they can be registered in somewhat exotic nations where United States law does not apply.

Notwithstanding all this, you might still be able to sue if you are injured on a cruise ship. Cruise ship personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits can be successful. The key to suing a cruise line is knowing the applicable laws and how to prove negligence. A cruise ship lawyer can help with this and determine whether you have a case against a cruise line.

Cruise Ship Injury Lawyer Lawyer Near Me (800) 917-8989

How to File a Cruise Ship Injury Lawsuit

Filing a cruise ship injury lawsuit can be quite different from filing a land-based personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. However, suing a cruise line for personal injury or wrongful death is certainly possible and can be successful if you can prove that a cruise line’s negligence caused your illness or injuries or your loved one’s death.

The Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA) 46 U.S. Code CHAPTER 303 can give some protection to families that lost a loved one due to cruise ship negligence. DOHSA gives families the right to file suit for compensation, even if the accident took place in international waters.

You have the option of consulting a cruise ship injuries lawyer first and as soon as possible after the injury occurred. Bear in mind that you may have only limited time for any legal action. Your ticket contract should state the time limit of your potential lawsuit.

The cruise line will most likely try to make it as difficult as possible for you to recover any compensation, and they can fight any claims and lawsuits with a team of lawyers. A lawyer knows the laws that apply in these cases and can help you make an informed decision, as well as fight for your rights and compensation, and represent you in court.

The ticket contract you signed with the cruise line does not only state a time limit for any legal action, but it typically also states the city in which you will have to bring forward a lawsuit. Many of the bigger cruise lines such as Carnival, Princess Cruise Lines, Holland America, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line, and others, demand that you file lawsuits in federal court in Miami, Florida.

Taking timely action can be pivotal. Your case could potentially be dismissed if you do not file your lawsuit within the specified time as stated in the ticket contract, or you do not file in the correct city and at the specified venue. Hiring a lawyer that handles cruise ship cases can be helpful in filing a lawsuit against a cruise line correctly.

Having an accident on a cruise ship can be frustrating and upsetting. Not only can it ruin your dream vacation, but you might now also have a mountain of medical bills and other expenses to deal with. Perhaps you were even confined to a ship with an infectious disease or injury for days without adequate medical treatment and care, worsening your condition. You may now be thinking about how to file a cruise ship injury lawsuit to recover some of your losses.

Generally, the contract you signed with your cruise line on commencing your vacation, which is usually printed on your ticket, will tell you where and how you can file a lawsuit. It will also most likely tell you about any time limits. Cruise lines can try to limit the timeframe for any injury lawsuits and they may state certain waivers for liability in their ticket contracts.

Nevertheless, even if you possibly waived certain rights by signing the ticket contract, you would most likely still be able to file a cruise ship injury lawsuit if you can prove negligence of the cruise line. Your best course of action can be to connect with a lawyer.

Cruise Ship Accidents

Unfortunately, accidents on cruise ships are not rare. According to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) in 2017 alone, marine accidents killed almost 1,200 people and resulted in over $197 million in insurance losses. 1,087 of the deaths occurred on passenger vessels. If a loved one died in a cruise ship accident, you could have legal recourse, and could potentially file a wrongful death lawsuit.

In most cases, fortunately, accidents are not tragic and can often involve slips and falls. International Maritime Health Association found that over a three-year period, by far the most common cruise ship accidents were falls. While slips and falls in some instances may not cause more than a bruise and a few scratches, they do have the potential to cause serious injuries such as fractures and concussions. A severe fall can result in permanent injury and disability. In these cases, if the cruise line acted negligently and failed to keep the premises safe, you could file a cruise ship injury lawsuit and recover compensation.

Your Legal Options

You may be able to file a cruise ship injury lawsuit if you can prove that your accident and injuries happened due to negligence of the cruise line, operator of the vessel, or staff. You could also potentially file a lawsuit against a third party in connection with your cruise accident, such as a ticket agent or tour operator.

As a general rule, you will have to prove that the liable party had a duty of care towards you, that they breached this duty of care, and that your accident and injuries were a direct result of the breach in duty. Generally, you will also have to prove that you have monetary damages from any injuries. Similar principles apply if you are looking to file a wrongful death suit after losing a loved one in a cruise ship accident.

Filing a cruise ship lawsuit can have some important differences and complications when compared to other personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits. It can, therefore, be helpful to consult with a cruise ship lawyer who can advise you comprehensively about the best way to file a cruise ship injury lawsuit.

Recovering Compensation for Cruise Ship Injuries

You could receive compensation if you file a lawsuit for any cruise ship injuries. While compensation varies from case to case and depends on your specific circumstances, you could potentially recover costs for:

• Medical treatment
• Future medical treatment
• Medical devices
• Future lost wages
• Physical pain and suffering
• Emotional anguish
• Loss of life enjoyment
• Loss of a limb
• Loss of a sense

You might also receive other types of compensation. In a wrongful death case, you could receive funeral costs, loss of companionship, and other awards.

A cruise ship lawyer can advise you further on how to file a cruise ship injury lawsuit and can answer all your questions after assessing your particular cruise ship injury or wrongful death case.

Click to contact our Cruise Ship Injury Lawyer Lawyers today

What Can I Expect If I File a Lawsuit Against a Cruise Line for an Injury?

Cruise ship passengers do have legal rights, and cruise lines have a number of responsibilities. This includes making sure that risks of accidents and injuries, as well as risks of catching any infectious diseases, are kept to an absolute minimum. A cruise line also has to ensure that all staff hired have been vetted and are adequately trained not only for their particular job, but also with assisting passengers in the event of an emergency or accident.

If you intend to file a lawsuit in order to recover compensation for any injuries that you suffered due to the negligence of a cruise line or staff, you can expect an uphill battle. Not only do the cruise lines try and protect themselves with their ticket contracts that waive liability in a number of circumstances, as well as set a timeline for lawsuits, they can also fight claims vigorously. If you suffered injures by cruise ship negligence, you need to act quickly to protect yourself from present and future financial losses.

In the first instance, a cruise line may try to convince you not to take legal action, and their insurance company might even offer you a settlement out of court. You do not have to sign any statements or agree to any settlements. You have the right to consult with a lawyer about your options.

Generally, insurance companies will work in their own interests and try to keep any settlements as low as they possibly can. It can be helpful, therefore, to hire a cruise ship injuries lawyer who will have your best interests at heart and will fight for your rights and compensation.

When trying to hold a cruise line to account for your injuries, you should expect to have to prove your case with concrete evidence and witness statements showing negligence of the cruise line. You may also need to rely on the opinion of expert witnesses to prove your case. Holding a large cruise line accountable can feel daunting and overwhelming when considering that they have almost unlimited resources to fight any claims and lawsuits.

However, you are not alone. A lawyer can help you with all aspects of building your case and proving the negligence of a cruise line. We can help gather the evidence, witnesses, and expert witnesses needed for your case. If needed, we can also negotiate with insurance companies and fight for your rights in court.

If you or a loved one suffered any injuries on a recent cruise vacation, you may be wondering what you can expect if you file a lawsuit against a cruise line for an injury. Generally, filing a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against a cruise line in order to recover medical bills and expenses can be challenging. Expect having to provide evidence proving that the cruise line or cruise staff acted negligently, and that this negligence caused your injuries. According to Reuters , cruise lines may offer settlements for major incidents that occur during a period at sea, but negligence and major injuries are key for a lawsuit against a cruise ship.

The same principle holds true for any illnesses that you have caught onboard. You will not be able to sue a cruise line unless you can prove that negligence of the staff or the company caused you to get sick. An illness such as the common cold will likely not qualify; however, if you can prove that you caught a serious illness, such as food poisoning, onboard and that this was the result of unhygienic and inadequate food handling procedures, you could have a case. According to The New York Times , passengers aboard a cruise ship that failed to follow medical guidelines sued after a coronavirus outbreak.

Some infectious illnesses that passengers catch on cruise ships can be life-threatening. Lack of hygiene and infection prevention, or an ineffective quarantine, can contribute to the spread of illnesses. If you had serious health implications and medical bills from either an infectious disease or injury suffered on board, you could potentially file suit. According to the Associated Press , even medical malpractice suits can occur if an injury occurs after a medical error. According to International Maritime Health , slip and falls account for a majority of injuries aboard cruise ships. Depending on whether or not negligence on the part of the cruise line contributed to the fall, you may qualify to pursue a claim or suit.

If you file a lawsuit against a cruise line for an injury, you can expect having to produce comprehensive evidence highlighting the cruise line’s negligence and your injuries. This can include pictures you took of the accident and what caused the accident, witness statements, and medical reports, as well as other evidence. You may also need to draw on the testimony of expert witnesses to strengthen your case.

The Cruise Line Might Offer You a Settlement

If you file a lawsuit against a cruise line for an injury, you can expect that the cruise line or their insurance approach you for an out-of-court settlement. This can not only save them court expenses and attorney’s fees; it can also help them keep any compensation as low as possible.

If your injuries prove severe, though, you can seek fair compensation in the form of a personal injury lawsuit. Having legal representation can help you assess an initial settlement and decide if filing a lawsuit is appropriate in your case.

Filing a Lawsuit Against A Cruise Line

Cruise lines, in their ticket contracts, limit the amount of time you might have to file suit against them. They also stipulate where you can file any lawsuits. Not adhering to the terms set out in the ticket contracts could bar you from obtaining compensation.

Several large cruise lines state in their contracts that you will have to file any legal action in the United States district court for the southern district of Florida in Miami-Dade County. Other cruise lines may demand you to file in other locations throughout the United States. You can find this information in your contract.

It is important that you comply with what is stated in your ticket contract, including any time limits and stipulations as to the city and venue of where you can file a lawsuit.

Complete a Free Case Evaluation form now

What Damages Are Available for Injuring Yourself on a Cruise Ship?

If you can prove that a cruise line’s negligence is responsible for your injuries, you could receive compensation. It can be difficult to generalize about the amounts and types of compensation you could receive, as this depends on your accident and the severities of your injuries. It might also depend on whether the cruise line was wholly or partially responsible for your injuries.

However, generally in a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit, you could recover certain economic damages. Economic damages relate to monetary losses you had as a result of an accident or wrongful death in the family, and compensation can include the costs for:

• Medical treatments
• Hospitalization
• Rehabilitation
• Lost income and future lost income
• Transportation
• Health aide or home help
• Funeral costs

You could potentially also recover non-economic damages with a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against a cruise line. Non-economic damages tend to be trickier to quantify, as they typically cannot be shown with bills or receipts and are therefore somewhat subjective. Non-economic damages that you could claim in a cruise ship injury or wrongful death lawsuit can include amounts for:

• Loss of a limb or sense
• Disfigurement
• Loss of companionship
• Reduced quality of life
• Loss of guardianship and guidance

Since non-economic damages are largely subjective, having a cruise ship injuries lawyer by your side can be helpful for calculating non-economic and other compensation for your case. Additionally, you could also receive punitive awards if the cruise line acted particularly negligently in the accident that caused your injuries.

Sometimes, you can file or join in with a class action lawsuit against a cruise line, when a number of plaintiffs suffered injuries due to cruise ship negligence in the same type of accident or negligence. This can be the case when an infectious disease breaks out on a ship, affecting many passengers. These types of lawsuits can also provide plaintiffs with a monetary settlement.

If you would like to find out more about any compensation that you could receive, and how you might best go about recovering any damages, consulting with a lawyer can inform you. At Pintas & Mullins Law Firm, we can evaluate your specific case to see if you could hold a cruise line to account and obtain compensation for any losses.

Passengers board cruise ships for relaxing vacations, but accidents and injuries on cruise ships can happen. Depending on the extent of your injuries, you may qualify for different types of awards if you can prove that negligence on the part of the cruise line caused your accident. According to Reuters , not every situation aboard a cruise ship warrants a lawsuit, but if severe injuries occur due to the negligence of the company that owns the ship, a lawsuit can help a victim seek reparations.

In addition to the more serious accidents such as the grounding of a ship, a collision, or a fire onboard, injuries can happen in a variety of every-day circumstances on a cruise ship. According to a three-year study, published by the International Maritime Health , the overwhelming majority of accidents on cruise ships, as well as onshore, are slips and falls, and the most frequently injured body parts are the lower extremities. Unlike slips and falls on land, a slip and fall aboard a ship can lead to open wounds, dislocations, and fractures.

If you had an accident on vacation, you may want to find out what damages are available for injuring yourself on a cruise ship. If you initiate legal action against a cruise line, you might be able to recover medical bills and other costs related to the injury. Consulting a cruise ship injury lawyer can help you get clear on your legal options and assist you in recovering any compensation for your injuries.

Types of Accidents on Cruise Ships

While slips and falls may be a typical cruise ship accident, injuries can occur in other circumstances on a cruise ship. These days, cruise ships are more like floating cities than ships. They are full of fun and novel amenities for those looking for activities and thrills onboard, for example climbing walls, water parks, onboard zip lines, and bungee jumping. All these amenities come with an increased risk of accidents and mishaps.

Likewise, shore excursions can also be a source of accidents and injuries. Excursions offer activities such as hiking up waterfalls or mountains, swimming with dolphins and stingrays, and bus trips up narrow mountain roads. Unfortunately, these activities can sometimes lead to accidents and serious injuries, forcing passengers to seek urgent medical treatment onshore or onboard. Sometimes, the injuries can be so extensive that a passenger has to return home for medical treatment. Occasionally, people die in cruise ship accidents.

Some of the other accidents and injuries seen with cruise ships can include:

• Elevator accidents
• Infectious disease outbreaks

According to the Associated Press , even doctors who work aboard cruise ship risk malpractice suits. Accidents on cruise ships are not only frustrating and can end a vacation. They can also result in hefty medical bills. Sometimes, injuries can be life-changing or fatal. Depending on the severity of an accident, injuries on cruise ships could also result in broken bones, traumatic brain injury, disfigurement, and permanent disability.

Liability in a Cruise Ship Accident

Serious injuries can result not only in high medical bills but also in ongoing future rehabilitation costs, transport costs, and lost income. In some cases, the victims of a cruise ship accident may never be able to return to their career; however, there may be compensation and damages available if you injured yourself on a cruise ship. It can be important to do everything possible to protect yourself from any potential future losses and bills connected to the injuries.

If the cruise line, or a third party contracted by the cruise line, is responsible for the accident that caused your injuries, you might have legal recourse and could obtain compensation. You have the choice to get advice from a cruise ship injury lawyer when seeking the justice and compensation that you deserve. According to The New York Times , one cruise ship’s failure to follow medical guidelines resulted in an outbreak of coronavirus.

Damages Available in Cruise Ship Accidents

Damages that are available for injuring yourself on a cruise ship can include economic and noneconomic awards in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits. The exact types of compensation and amounts that you could receive will depend on your unique circumstances and on whether your injuries are minor or life-changing and permanent. Generally, compensation in personal injury cases can entail:

• Present and future medical treatment costs
• Loss of wages and future loss of wages
• Costs for medical devices
• Costs for help with daily tasks
• Awards for mental suffering
• Awards for physical pain and suffering
• Awards for loss of life-enjoyment

In wrongful death cases, a plaintiff could also recover:

• Funeral expenses
• Loss of guardianship for children

There could be other compensation due to you, depending on the details of your accident, such as punitive damages and others.

We Can Help with Your Cruise Ship Lawsuit

If you are considering holding a cruise line to account for any illnesses or injuries due to negligence on a ship, contact us as soon as possible. Timely action is of the essence as you could be prevented from initiating legal action if you wait too long, depending on your ticket contract and any applicable statutes of limitations.

Lawsuits against a cruise line can potentially be very different from other lawsuits. International or foreign laws may apply that can make legal action more complicated and cumbersome.

While this should not discourage you from initiating legal action if you suffered injuries or a loved one died on a cruise ship, it can be beneficial to accept professional help when fighting against a large cruise line.

Call Pintas & Mullins Law Firm today and talk to one of our team members about your cruise ship injury case. Find out how we can help you receive compensation at (800) 794-0444 .

Call or text (800) 917-8989 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form

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Judge sides with Florida in cruise lawsuit, says CDC overstepped authority

The CDC has until July 2 to create new guidelines.

A federal judge ruled in favor of Florida in a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying the agency overstepped its authority.

Judge Steven Merryday said the CDC is "preliminarily enjoined" from enforcing its conditional sail order -- a set of guidelines for cruise companies wishing to resume sailing in the U.S., including test cruises and vaccine requirements -- beginning July 18.

"This order finds that Florida is highly likely to prevail on the merits of the claim that CDC's conditional sailing order and the implementing orders exceed the authority delegated to CDC," the ruling said.

Merryday said the CDC has until July 2 to propose new guidelines for cruises "both permitting cruise ships to sail timely and remaining within CDC's authority."

"Florida establishes a strong likelihood that many or almost all cruise ships will remain unable to sail for the entire summer season. And each day the cruise industry faces uncertainty about when cruises can resume, Florida not only suffers a concrete economic injury resulting from reduced revenue and increased unemployment spending, but Florida faces an increasingly threatening and imminent prospect that the cruise industry will depart the state," the ruling said.

MORE: 1st cruise ship sails from North America since 2020, with more than 95% vaccinated

More: 2 passengers test positive for covid-19 on 1st north american cruise since 2020.

The lawsuit began when Gov. Ron DeSantis sued the agency in April in an attempt to resume cruising, a big business in Florida, where many cruise lines are based.

"The CDC has been wrong all along, and they knew it," DeSantis said in a statement. "Today, we are securing this victory for Florida families, for the cruise industry, and for every state that wants to preserve its rights in the face of unprecedented federal overreach."

Cruising with more than 250 people has been prohibited in U.S. waters since March 2020. The first cruise ship set to sail from U.S. waters since then is the Celebrity Edge, which is scheduled to depart from Florida on June 26.

ABC News' Brian Hartman contributed to this report.

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$12.5M Carnival Cruise Settlement Gets Final Approval

Emily sortor  |  november 4, 2019, category: legal news.

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The settlement deal was reached between customers and Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., and Norwegian Cruise Lines, along with a travel agency named Resort Marketing Group.

Customers claimed that the companies violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending robocalls to individuals without their consent.

According to the Royal Caribbean class action lawsuit, Resort Marketing Group operated the autodialing system used by the three cruise lines to send their spam calls.  

Since the proposed settlement deal received preliminary approval, claims for benefits have already come flooding in. Bloomberg reports that 274,851 valid claims have been filed, making the average amount given to Class Members around $22.

Class representatives asked for around a third of the total settlement amount. After the lead plaintiff’s $25,000 award and administrative costs were deducted, this amount totaled $3.15 million.  

Final approval was granted by U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood who determined that the attorneys’ fees were fair because the TPCA class action lawsuit took around eight years, and involved serious litigation before a settlement deal was reached.

The approval for the Royal Caribbean class action settlement was granted even though 31 objections against it were filed, including two objections that sought separate awards and attorneys’ fees. However, Judge Wood denied these two requests, says Bloomberg.  

Additionally, some of the opposition concerned supplemental documentation that became required of claimants after it was announced that payouts could be several hundred dollars. The supplemental documentation was reportedly a way to ward off potentially fraudulent claims for Royal Caribbean class action settlement benefits. Judge Wood determined that this documentation was indeed valuable as a safeguard against fraud, despite protestations to the contrary.

This final approval follows a preliminary approval granted in July 2017. The cruise lines spam calls class action lawsuit was filed by Phillip Charvat who claimed that Resort Marketing Group sent thousands of robocalls to people who did not consent to receive them, on behalf of the three cruise companies: Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., and Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Allegedly, the spam calls were placed using an autodialer that allowed the travel agent to call many numbers at once.

Additionally, Charvat says that the calls featured a recorded message. According to the cruise lines class action lawsuit, these elements represented violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits businesses from sending messages using autodialers, especially robocalls, without the recipients’ consent.

Will you benefit from the Carnival robocall class action settlement? Let us know in the comments below.

The call recipients are represented by Matthew McCue of the Law Office of Matthew P. McCue, Alexander Burke of Burke Law Offices and Edward Broderick and Anthony Paronich of Broderick & Paronich PC.

The Royal Caribbean Class Action Lawsuit is Philip Charvat v. Elizabeth Valente, et al. , Case No. 1:12-cv-05746, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On Aug. 13, 2020, Top Class Actions viewers started receiving long-awaited checks in the mail from the Carnival Cruise, Royal Caribbean telemarketing class action settlement worth as much as $25.02! Congratulations to everyone who filed a valid claim and got PAID!

Join a Free TCPA Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

GET A FREE CASE EVALUATION NOW

Read More Lawsuit & Settlement News:

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165 thoughts on $12.5M Carnival Cruise Settlement Gets Final Approval

Never received a check from settlement case No.1:12-cv05746 .Claim #:CQC62430274001 and CQC62431379701. Left forwarding address with usps june 2019 .

I want to know why I have not received a check for class action case number 1:12- CV-5746 claim # 62749403101

Still haven’t got anything Sep 10th 2022…

I checked on this several times. No word back, never received any notice or money.

I have not received my check either

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A Widow Said Her Husband Was Left in a Drinks Cooler After Dying on a Cruise

Marilyn Jones accused Celebrity Cruises in a lawsuit of storing her husband’s body in a cooler rather than the ship’s morgue and allowing it to become “horrifically decomposed.”

By Lauren McCarthy

Last August, Marilyn Jones and her husband, Robert, set out from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on an eight-day Caribbean cruise aboard the Celebrity Equinox.

The couple, of Bonifay, Fla., were just two days into the trip when Robert Jones, 79, died of a heart attack.

Celebrity Cruises presented Ms. Jones with two options, according to a federal lawsuit that she filed against the cruise line this week: disembark with her husband’s body in San Juan, P.R., or agree to have it stored in the ship’s morgue until it returned to Florida six days later.

She opted to remain with the ship. But when a funeral home worker and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy came aboard in Fort Lauderdale to retrieve Mr. Jones’s body, they discovered that it had been moved from the morgue to a cooler on a different floor, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Having been stored at an insufficient temperature, the body had “horrifically decomposed,” the lawsuit said, preventing his family from having an open casket at his wake and funeral.

For her trauma, Ms. Jones, who had been married to her husband for 55 years, and her family are seeking a jury trial and at least $1 million in damages.

In a statement, Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing “the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family.”

The lawsuit, which was reported by Miami New Times , said members of the ship’s crew told Ms. Jones that there was a “50/50 shot” if she got off the ship in San Juan that the coroner’s office there would take possession of her husband’s body for an autopsy before releasing it to a funeral home. She was told she would have to stay in Puerto Rico with his body and make arrangements on her own to get it, and herself, back to Florida.

Assured that the Equinox was equipped to safely transport her husband’s body back to Fort Lauderdale, Ms. Jones, who was 78 at the time and suddenly traveling alone, gave the crew permission to store his body in the ship’s morgue and agreed to remain on board for the rest of the cruise, the lawsuit says.

“She was given a very difficult choice,” Thomas Carey, a lawyer representing Ms. Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren, who are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in an interview on Friday. “She logically selected the ship’s morgue,” he said, after she was assured it had a working facility.

“At some unknown point,” he said, “somebody discovered that the refrigeration was not working.”

When the funeral home worker and the sheriff’s deputy found that Mr. Jones’s body was not in the morgue but had been moved to a beverage cooler, the lawsuit said, it was “immediately clear” that it was in the advanced stages of decomposition, the lawsuit said. The body, it said, had expanded with gas and “his skin had turned green.”

The cooler was intended for things like soda, Mr. Carey said, and was not nearly cold enough to store a human body.

Like all cruise ships, the Celebrity Equinox, which is registered in Malta and can carry up to 2,852 people, is required to have a morgue because onboard deaths are not uncommon, said Hendrik Keijer, a marine operations expert who served for 10 years as a captain on Holland America Line cruise ships.

“For some people it is their last vacation, unfortunately,” Mr. Keijer said. “That’s why morgues are onboard.”

Jacob Munch, a maritime lawyer who is also representing Ms. Jones in her lawsuit, said cruise lines have an obligation to maintain the morgues.

“It’s incumbent on them to make sure they’re working properly,” he said in an interview, “especially in sensitive situations like this. She’s turning to them for advice.”

If Ms. Jones had known the ship did not have a working morgue, the lawsuit said, she would have chosen to take her husband’s body off the ship in Puerto Rico. Celebrity Cruises’ handling of the matter had been “reckless and careless,” it said.

Ms. Jones and her family are “devastated” and will struggle to heal, Mr. Carey said.

“For the rest of her life,” he said, “she’s going to have to think about this.”

Lauren McCarthy , a planning editor for live coverage at The Times, is on temporary assignment as a breaking-news reporter. More about Lauren McCarthy

Tom Cruise's Flashy Attendance At Posh Spice's 50th Birthday Is The Ultimate Dig At Daughter Suri

Tom Cruise made a huge splash at Posh Spice's 50th birthday party in London. According to the Daily Mail , Cruise came super close to overshadowing Victoria Beckham and her star-studded guest list, which also included all of the members of her music group, the Spice Girls. Apparently, Cruise, who was already in town due to shooting "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part Two," was the life of the glitzy affair, and even kept the energy up by hitting the dance floor at Oswalds, the upscale club where Victoria's party was held. "People were absolutely dumbfounded," said one lucky insider who scored an invite to what sounds like the party of the year.

According to SheKnows , Cruise's attendance means his long-standing feud with Victoria and David Beckham is now over. As the outlet explained, Cruise was super close with the A-list couple during the 2000s. However, they reportedly drifted apart after the couple rebuffed Cruise's attempt to get them to join Scientology, the religion he has openly practiced since the mid-80s. But everything is obviously okay now. Unfortunately, his decision to attend Victoria's bash is a pretty good indicator that Cruise and his daughter, Suri, likely haven't repaired their broken relationship . You see, Suri celebrated her 18th birthday  on April 18 and as far as anyone knows, she didn't seem to be on Cruise's radar .

Suri Cruise celebrated her big day without Tom

Tom Cruise was nowhere to be found as his daughter, Suri Cruise, celebrated her 18th birthday in New York City. According to TMZ , Suri decided to enjoy her birthday by spending the day with her friend as they visited various New York staples. And while her mother, Katie Holmes, wasn't photographed alongside Suri during the outing, it's easy to assume that given their closeness, she and Suri celebrated with family at a later time. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Tom, who's been estranged from his daughter for more than a decade after Holmes filed for divorce.

TMZ reported that their last in-person meeting took place in 2006, when Tom took Suri to Disneyland. Since then, the father and daughter have presumably had zero contact. In March 2023, a source told  Page Six  Tom and Suri hadn't had a relationship for several years. The outlet also referenced Tom's past comments when he admitted he and Suri hadn't seen each other for three months shortly after the divorce. "Listen, when there is a divorce ... things change," Tom said in court during a 2012 defamation lawsuit against Bauer Media. "It's not an ideal scene. It's not an ideal situation."

Suri Cruise seems to be in great spirits

Suri Cruise may not currently have a close relationship with her father, Tom Cruise, but she doesn't seem to be too down about life in general. According to Page Six , Suri looked quite happy when she was spotted hanging out with a friend a few days before her milestone birthday. Suri also looked quite fashionable as she donned a white skirt and vibrant red sweater. Of course, she has every reason to be in  good spirits. After all, she has her entire future ahead of her, including her high school graduation coming up in June 2024 and her college career, which could possibly kick off in the fall of 2024.

According to the Daily Mail, Suri is excited to leave the nest and is already applying to colleges. "Suri is applying to schools all over the place," revealed the insider. "[Katie] really does want her to stay in New York so they can be close to each other," shared a different source. "Katie takes great pride in her but is also extremely overprotective," they continued, while also revealing that the whole college planning process has made Holmes feel "overwhelmed." Fortunately, Holmes won't have to worry about financing Suri's college education, as Tom committed to that years ago.

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Victoria Beckham Spice Girl Bash Brings Tom Cruise Into Bitter David Beckham, Mark Wahlberg $10M Feud

Tom Cruise has found himself “dragged” into David Beckham and Mark Wahlberg ‘s epic $10 million dollar feud after attending Victoria Beckham ‘s star-studded 50th birthday bash on Saturday night.

As the Mission Impossible star, 61, rocked up at Beckham’s wife’s star-studded birthday bash in London and reportedly did the splits on the dance floor cheered on by the likes of Eva Longoria and the reunited Spice Girls, he was likely oblivious to a storm brewing online.

Us Weekly confirmed that Beckham’s DB Ventures company filed a lawsuit against F45 Training, which is partially owned by his former pal Wahlberg.

The soccer star, 48, alleges in court documents shared by TMZ that F45 “duped” him into signing an endorsement deal but he never received the $10 million he was offered in contract negotiations.

Related: Revisiting David Beckham and Mark Wahlberg’s Relationship

He said he was promised stocks as compensation, which were never delivered after share prices seemingly plummeted.

And as he battles it out with the Boogie Nights actor, a contentious old video has resurfaced adding fuel to the fire.

Little did Beckham’s pal Cruise know that his appearance at the exclusive bash would only stir up his own old feud with Wahlberg and lead to talk of him siding with Beckham in this fresh one.

A 2013 clip started doing the rounds online showing Wahlberg appearing to slam the Top Gun actor for suggesting that sometimes it feels like acting is akin to serving as a soldier. When asked whether shooting a movie feels like being a soldier in Afghanistan, Cruise replied: “That’s what it feels like, and certainly on this last movie, it was brutal. It was brutal.”

Wahlberg saw red at the suggestion that any actor would compare the craft to being on the front line.

A video obtained by TMZ showed the star speaking at a Q&A in Los Angeles ahead of a screening of his film Lone Survivor , in which he played a Navy SEAL.

“For actors to sit there and talk about, ‘Oh, I went to SEAL training’ — I don’t give a f–k about what you did,” he said. “You don’t do what these guys do. You just don’t. For somebody to sit there and say my job was as difficult as being in the military. How f–king dare you, while you sit in a makeup chair for two hours. I don’t give a s–t if you’re getting your ass busted. You get to go home at the end of the day. You get to go to your hotel room. You get to order f–king chicken or steak, whatever the f–k it is.”

Afterwards, he asked the Q&A host not to ask him any more questions while he calmed down before apologizing for “losing his s–t.”

However, Wahlberg then later claimed that it was a misunderstanding. During an interview with TMZ, he said: “I didn’t know that it was Tom Cruise that said that. Somebody just mentioned that people are [making that comparison]. I love Tom Cruise. I have much respect for Tom Cruise, but I have just as much respect for military guys, so it’s just unfair for anybody to comment on that.”

The pair have not crossed paths since nor have they embarked on any projects together. It hasn’t helped matters that Wahlberg has since said that he got into producing movies because he was tired of waiting around to be offered films that Cruise had rejected.

Related: Stars at Court

Fans sharing the resurfaced clip of his angry 2013 rant suggested that Cruise has shown his loyalty to old pal Beckham by pausing his hectic work schedule to attend the Saturday night bash amid the new drama.

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Wahlberg’s lawyers have denied Beckham’s claims, calling the “fraudulent conduct” accusations baseless in a motion to dismiss according to The Sun .

“The 209-page, 610-paragraph SAC [complaint] tries to make up with length what it lacks in merit,” a response from Wahlberg’s lawyers read.

F45 launched in 2011 with Wahlberg, who owns more than 30 percent of the company, serving as chief brand officer. Beckham, who became pals with Wahlberg when he and Victoria moved to L.A. back in 2012, and former golfer Greg Norman sued F45 Training together in late 2022, but a judge ordered them to separate their lawsuits.

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Jimmie Allen Tearfully Reveals He Contemplated Suicide After Sexual Assault Lawsuit

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Jimmie Allen  had dark thoughts during a scandal-filled time in his life. In a recent conversation with Kathie Lee Gifford  -- which the country singer released on his YouTube channel  on Tuesday -- Allen, 38, recalled contemplating suicide when his former manager sued him for sexual assault .

In May 2023, Allen's day-to-day manager, who was identified only as Jane Doe in her lawsuit, alleged that the singer raped her and repeatedly subjected her to sexual abuse and harassment over the course of 18 months.

At the time, in a statement to ET provided by his attorney, Allen admitted to having had a "sexual relationship" with the woman suing him, but claimed it was consensual for nearly two years. 

In his conversation with Gifford, Allen said he was "searching for instant gratification from women" during his affair, before discussing specifics about the situation.

"She was my day-to-day manager, so she was with me everywhere I went. We'd hook up then we'd stop, and then when we'd stop... she'd get all sad and upset, so to make her feel better, we'd start hooking up again," he claimed.

Allen maintained that he "absolutely [did] not" want a relationship with the woman, but admitted, "I should've seen that she was into me. For me, even though it was just physical, I think for her it was getting emotional."

When the lawsuit was filed, Allen said he was "pissed off" and "confused and heartbroken."

"It's someone who'd become a friend," he said. "... I knew it was wrong because I'm in a relationship. That's what I'm willing to take accountability for... For the longest time, in my head, I remember thinking, 'As long as I'm providing for my wife and my children, I have the freedom to do whatever I want.' That's not the right mentality. It's wrong. I made a commitment. I should've either stuck with it or ended it."

The lawsuit -- which Jane Doe has since dropped  -- came amid Allen's separation and eventual divorce filing from Alexis Gale, who was pregnant with their third child at the time. Gale -- who's also mom to Naomie, 3, and Zara, 2 --  welcomed son  Cohen in October 2023. Allen is also dad to Aadyn, who was born in 2015 to a woman Allen has never publicly named, and twin babies, with his longtime pal, Danielle. Amid the allegations, Allen thought of one main thing: his family.

"I was sitting there and I literally felt like the whole world had just collapsed. 'Cause the first thing my brain goes to is not the career, it's 'How am I going to provide for my kids?'" he said, before explaining why he then considered the idea of suicide.

"It hit me. My life insurance covers suicide," he said. "I don't feel that way now, but in that moment, when you feel like you have nothing in the midst of a society where it's no longer innocent until proven guilty... [people think] she said this so it must be true."

With that on his mind, Allen "moved everything over to one phone -- all my evidence, pictures, text messages, videos, everything... [and then] I was putting bullets in my gun clip."

A text from his friend came at just the right moment, though.

"My friend Chuck texted me... He said, 'Ending it isn't the answer.' When I read those words that... I just stopped," Allen said. "I remember I called one of my buddies... He came up. I gave him my gun. I said, 'Take it. I don't need it.' My mom flew in, and then I started receiving phone calls from different artists checking in on me, saying they love me, they care about me, they know who I am. Then I started receiving calls from people I didn't even expect. Some of the biggest actors in Hollywood that I've been fans of for years -- I've never met -- somehow got my phone number and called me."

For all the support Allen received in the midst of the drama, there were also "people that I was expecting to hear from but I didn't."

"That's what hurt a lot," he said. "... I didn't think it would hurt as much as it did, having people I thought were my friends just leave, but thanks to you, other friends in the business, my family, I was able to get through. It was rough."

From there, Allen went to a retreat for mental health and got into therapy, but suicidal thoughts continued.

"Every single day, I remember battling: Do I want to live? Do I not want to live?" he recalled. "When bills get due. I'm like, 'Man, my family would have X amount of dollars if I would've took care of something,' but I realized that's not the way to do it."

When a friend came through with some money for Allen -- help he needed due to dropped deals amid the scandal -- things started to turn around.

"After a few months... I started to look at the situation different. It went from, 'God, why is this happening to me?' to 'God, what am I supposed to learn?'" he said. "... I went from hating her to a little bit kind of feeling bad for her, trying to understand what was going on in her life that she needed to do this. How did I not make myself available for a conversation about her feelings?"

Ultimately, the break was a good thing for Allen. In fact, he said, "It honestly saved my life."

Before the scandal, Allen said, he "turned to drugs" and "life just felt like a circus, all because I couldn't be honest with myself about who I was and what I wanted," both personally and professionally. Now, though, Allen said he's "been the happiest I've ever been."

Going forward, he said, "[I want] to continue to be honest with myself and being honest with everyone else."

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to  suicidepreventionlifeline.org .

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