Miami – Passengers Of Stranded Ship Have Little Cause To Sue

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    This undated photo provided by passenger Don Hoggatt, of Dallas, shows covered urinals and bagged trash cans for passengers to use in one of the bathrooms aboard the Carnival Triumph cruise ship which became disabled after an engine-room fire left the ship powerless off Mexico last weekend. The Triumph arrived late Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013, in Mobile, Ala., after an engine-room fire left the ship powerless off Mexico last weekend. (AP Photo/Don Hoggatt)Miami – After four days on a crippled cruise ship with overflowing toilets, stifling heat and hours-long waits for food, at least one passenger from the Carnival Triumph is seeking legal revenge.

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    But lawyers familiar with cruise ship lawsuits suggest angry passengers should think twice before rushing to the courts. Unless passengers suffered major injuries or other losses due to negligence by the cruise operator, they would be better off accepting compensation from Carnival Corp, they said.

    The Carnival Triumph was towed into port in Mobile, Alabama, late on Thursday, giving disembarking passengers an opportunity to speak out about their ordeal.

    Within hours, Cassie Terry, of Brazoria County, Texas, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Miami describing the ship as “a floating toilet, a floating Petri dish, a floating hell” and seeking damages from Carnival Corp.

    As the ship listed as it was being towed, Terry was in constant fear of contracting serious illness from raw sewage spilling from non-functioning toilets. She had to wade through human feces to reach food lines that were hours long, only to receive spoiled rations, according to the lawsuit.
    In this undated photo provided by Carnival cruise ship passenger Martha Ackley of Cypress,Texas, passengers wait around a make-shift charging area aboard the vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Passengers realized the ATM machines had power, so they unplugged them and daisy-chained power strips to charge mobile devices.  The ship had been idled for nearly a week in the Gulf of Mexico following an engine room fire. (AP Photo/Martha Ackley)

    But Terry’s account and those of other passengers do not describe the type of injuries or harm that could lead to a successful lawsuit, according to attorneys who specialize in suing cruise companies.

    Conditions might have been disgusting “but get over it,” said Miriam Lebental, an attorney from San Pedro, California, who specializes in cruise ship injuries.

    Like other attorneys that pursue cruise companies, she said she would not be interested in taking a case unless it involved a major injury and negligence, such as a passenger breaking their neck during a fall down an unlit stairwell.

    There have been no such reports from the Triumph.

    Terry declined to comment. Her attorney, Brenton Allison of Gilman & Allison in Pearland, Texas, said he understood that other attorney’s were skeptical about taking cases from passengers, but his client was nauseated and running a fever.

    “I don’t know what may manifest from her exposure to those conditions,” he said, adding that Terry would decline the compensation offered.

    Carnival has offered passengers $500, reimbursed their transportation and many onboard costs and given them a credit toward a future cruise equal to the amount they paid for the Triumph vacation.

    Jim Walker, a premier lawyer for cruise passengers, said passengers would be wise to take the money.

    “It’s more than any attorney could get for them,” said Walker, a partner at Walker & O’Neill in South Miami, Florida.

    The cruise industry has become adept at using tickets, which are binding contracts, to limit their liability and define how a passenger can sue the cruise company, the lawyers said.

    These tickets are “the most onerous one-sided terms and conditions,” said Walker. “It’s difficult to sue them.”

    For example, the tickets for the Costa Concordia, which hit rocks off the coast of Italy in January 2012 and killed 32, required passengers to sue in Italy.

    Several cases brought in Miami federal court by Concordia passengers were dismissed for that reason.

    In the case of the Triumph, the tickets likely contain similar language that require that lawsuits be brought in federal court in Miami, regardless of where the passenger lives.

    The cruise industry has said that such “forum selection” clauses in cruise tickets help keep down costs for cruise operators by corralling all litigation in one court.

    Walker said it gives the cruise industry leverage.

    “It’s like built-in home court advantage for the Miami Heat,” he added.

    Carnival, which is the parent company to both the Triumph and the Concordia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Cruise companies have also been able to limit their liability for accidents that occur during shore excursions or for the negligence of ship staff.

    That is because the cruise companies use outside companies to handle activities such as parasailing, even when the staff leading the excursions wear shirts or hats bearing the insignia of the cruise company.

    Cruise tickets often state that harm caused during excursions must be brought against the company that provided the activity.

    Many staff doctors or masseuses are independent contractors and passengers must sue them, not the cruise line, and staff often do not have insurance and frequently are not Americans.

    “If the ship doctor kills you, your family has to chase the doctor in South Africa or the Middle East or India, which is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible,” Walker added.


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    17 Comments
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    11 years ago

    So glad I’m too poor to afford a cruise!! LOL

    hershel
    hershel
    11 years ago

    No one reads, or even would understand what they are reading for that matter, the small print on almost any document.

    Chazzan
    Chazzan
    11 years ago

    Anyone upset at the cruise line’s virtual invincibility, despite the horrible conditions the passengers endured, should try to imagine what the things would look like if the world ran like the extreme right wingers that many frum people (and newspapers) parrot all day, with their “every man on his own” attitude. I’m the first to admit that today’s government and political climate is far too liberal and regulated (see Bloomberg, Michael) but the radical conservatives, who want no regulations and no government oversight, would have a world where every swindler and crook would have total free reign, not to mention that the big businesses really would use their power to crush everyone else.

    As always the Tanna said it best רבי חנינא סגן הכהנים אומר, הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות , שאלמלא מוראה, איש את רעהו חיים בלעו. That applies to the SEC, FDA, ATF, DEA, FAA, OCC etc., not just departments like FBI, DHS, CIA, and NYPD.

    SandmanNY
    SandmanNY
    11 years ago

    The compensation offered is a good deal. They should take it and be done with it. Americans are ridiculously litigious.

    11 years ago

    I beg to differ with this article. Noted maritime Attorney Michael Winkleman (who has won many judgments against various cruise lines) stated that in spite of the exclusionary clauses in the contract, the final decision to award damages, is up to a jury. Further, he stated that passengers can go after Carnival for both negligent and intentional infliction of mental trauma. For example, the Triumph could have been towed to Mexico, which was only 150 miles away, when the ship was stranded. Instead, the machers at Carnival made a decision to have the ship towed to Mobile, which was more than 500 miles away, thus subjecting the passengers to an extra four days of misery. The reason was that Carnival did not want to go to the additional expense of flying thousands of passengers from Mexico to the USA. Now, because of Carnival’s greed, it will be hit in the pocketbook. No matter how long the case may take in the courts, the passengers will gain the inevitable triumph (pardon the pun).

    JOTHEPROFESSOR
    JOTHEPROFESSOR
    11 years ago

    I would urge passengers to not cash checks until they consult a good lawyer; there may be a good class action here. I would not assume that the lawyers quoted are the last word.

    11 years ago

    To #11 -Esther- You should not paint all of the cruise companies with the same brush. In this particular case, Carnival is known as the Motel 6/Walmart of the cruise industry. It offers cheap cruises, and it “maintains” its cruise ships, in a substandard manner. There are other cruise lines to choose from, such as Holland-America, which maintains very high standards. One never reads about similar incidents on any of the Holland-America ships. I’ve been on Holland-America more than once, and I was impressed with their ship operations. In fact, Holland-America, going back over 140 years, has a very impressive safety record.

    MBYIsrael
    MBYIsrael
    11 years ago

    At the very least, they should get full refunds but remember right after 9/11, there was talk of people not being affected by the air and now we know differently. This ship was indeed a floating petri dish. Totally disgusting. Not just the toilet situation but the food contamination. Why couldn’t helicopters drop MRE’s to them?

    11 years ago

    If you check the Internet, you will see that Carnival’s parent company owns Holland-America. Others owned are Cunard, Seabourn, Princess and others. Resources available to people who want to check the seaworthiness or sanitation records of a cruise line are limited. In these times of government regulation and oversight, I wonder why the cruise lines seem exempt..

    11 years ago

    To #13 - In fact, when Carnival had a similar fire, and loss of engine power, on its Splendor ship (it was stranded in Nov., 2010, off the western coast of Mexico), the U.S. Navy dropped MRE’s onto the ship. At that time, the rescue operation seemed better organized, and the passengers did not suffer from a lack of toilet facilities for four days.