Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog

Published on: March 15, 2013

Third stranded Carnival Cruise Ship prompts U.S. Senator’s open letter to Carnival’s CEO Micky Arison

The Carnival Dream is the third ship in less than 2 years that has encountered serious propulsion, and engine issues, severe enough to prompt Carnival to seek rescue from the Coast Guards (Carnival Splendor & Carnival Triumph). The Carnival Dream is the latest incident where thousands of passengers were stranded in St. Marteen. Thankfully, Carnival did not make the decision to sail away despite mechanical issues, rather the Captain of the Carnival Dream opted to fly out all passengers back to the United States.

This latest event has prompted Senator John Rockefeller IV, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, to write a letter to Micky Arison, Chairman and CEO of Carnival Corp., and Carnival PLC. The letter can be downloaded here and is reproduced below:

Published on: February 26, 2013

Media storm necessary in shedding light on glaring shortcomings of Cruise safety?

By Leesfield & Partners

In the last 3 years, the cruise line industry has been dealt blows that would have knocked out any other business. Starting in 2010 with the fire aboard the Carnival Splendor, followed over a year ago with the deadly incident of the Costa Concordia. This month, another fire broke out aboard the Carnival Triumph, causing over 3,000 people to be stranded at sea for several days, forced to live in unsanitary conditions reminiscent of a third-world country slum.

Yet, Carnival Cruise Lines, and the rest of the cruise industry continues to strive and attract more passengers than ever. Translation: the cruise industry is bringing record revenues and earnings despite tragedies blames on cruise employees (Concordia) and business decisions made by some of the richest executives who working in the leisure business.

In a recent op-ed piece published in The Globe, the writer discusses the role of the media in manufacturing horror stories, mainly stemming from the Carnival Triumph fire, while disputing that there even was an incident worth reporting about. Kyle writes: “The Carnival Triumph cruise was supposed to last four days, and go to Cozumel, Mexico. That was before the engine fire, which crippled the ship and knocked out its propeller system, as well as sewage and air conditioning, according to the New York Times. The worst part of the incident was the sewage that leaked and soaked the carpets throughout the ship. Other than that, the patrons of the ship were simply inconvenienced.” The author makes several comparisons between the Costa Concordia and the Carnival Triumph calling one a tragedy and the other a mere inconvenience. Kyle concludes: “I think that some of the passengers of the ship need to suck it up; it’s not like it was the Titanic.”

Published on: February 15, 2013

Can I sue Carnival Cruise Lines for the Carnival Triumph fire?

By Leesfield & Partners

In 2010, a fire broke out in the engine room of the Carnival Splendor, disabling the large cruise ship, leaving thousands of passengers and crew-members stranded at sea for days. In early 2012, the Costa Concordia ran aground after its captain committed the unthinkable, which caused the death of 32 people. Despite these avoidable tragedies, and the public relations storm it found itself in at the time, Carnival Cruise Lines is reporting steady revenues and earnings.

For 2010, Carnival reported revenues of $14.4 billions. In 2011 and 2012, revenues increased to $15.7B and $15.3B respectively. While posting very strong revenues, the company’s earnings are just as strong, posting earnings of $2.42B in 2011, followed by $1.88B in 2012.

Tragedies and public relations disasters affect Carnival, and the entire cruise industry, relatively mildly compared to other businesses. Empirical data shows that the public at large, and cruise line customers have a very short collective memory when it comes to vacationing on a luxurious cruise ship. Since 2006, North American cruise passengers have steadily increased from 9.13 to 9.72 million in 2011. Worldwide in 2010, it is estimated that cruise ships were visited by 14.3 million passengers.

The question begging to be answered is, even if the public’s collective memory fades so rapidly that it does not affect traffic and consumption, why aren’t cruise lines taking a financial hit for their serious miscues? Answer is simple: Cruise lines do not respond to anyone or anything.

Let’s look at the thousands of passengers who were stranded aboard the Carnival Triumph for 5 days in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. The only thing Carnival can reasonably fear is that they lost 3,143 customers for life. That is a drop in their books. The cruise line industry responds to nobody because cruise companies have handcuffed their passengers in disclaiming the cruise line’s responsibility for everything that happens on their ship, except their own negligence (46 U.S.C.A. § 30509 expressly invalidates any contract provision aiming to limit a ship’s liability for its own negligence to its passengers, but is limited to cruises visiting a U.S. port.)

Cruise lines know that their ticket-contract provisions are essentially “almighty” and have been interpreted and declared legal and binding by competent courts. Prior to embarking on the Carnival Triumph, all passengers received a ticket which contains the following:

“Carnival shall not be liable to the passenger for damages for emotional distress, mental suffering/anguish or psychological injury of any kind under any circumstances, except when such damages were caused by the negligence of Carnival and resulted from the same passenger sustaining actual physical injury, or having been at risk of actual physical injury, or when such damages are held to be intentionally inflicted by Carnival.”

Carnival also disclaims that the ship is not responsible for, and entitled to do anything its Captain decides in the event of a “breakdown of the vessel”. The ticket also contains a “Class Action Waiver” which provides that passengers waive the right to form a class action to seek recovery. In cases where the passengers only claim is a ruined vacation, class actions may be the only form of effective remedy. The legal validity of the clauses is still an open question.

Under what circumstances could a Carnival Triumph passenger sue Carnival?
Carnival can be sued if its ship committed an act of negligence that resulted in a passenger’s physical injury. For instance, if a passenger slips on urine in the middle of a hallway, and ends up fracturing a hip, Carnival can be held responsible. A passenger, who becomes physically ill from the poor conditions or contracts an illness, will also likely have a valid claim against Carnival. But the hundreds of passengers, who were “merely” subjected to sleeping on the floor with hundreds of other people in hallways flooded with urine smells and worse, will have a much more difficult time asserting claims. Although claims for so-called negligent infliction of emotional distress are allowed in certain circumstances, they are generally limited to situations where the passenger was within the “zone of danger” of physical harm and suffered an emotional injury with some physical manifestation or psychological diagnosis.

Recently, Leesfield & Partners very successfully resolved a cruise passenger claim after our client fell due to conditions caused by a fire on board a different ship that had left the vessel stranded in the middle of the ocean, thereby creating an unstable platform for walking.
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Published on: February 12, 2013

Fire on Carnival Cruise Ship for the second time – Cruise Passengers stranded in the middle of the ocean

By Leesfield & Partners

Several days ago, the Carnival Triumph, operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, became inoperative after a fire broke out in one of the engine rooms. On board, 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew members are stranded with limited food, no air conditioning, only a few working toilets.

According to a CNN report, passengers who are now enduring their third day adrift at sea are commonly seeing “sewage running down the walls and floors.” Carnival has asked all people on board to defecate in bags and urinate in showers. If hungry, passengers have to mustard waiting in line for over three and half hours to eat cold meals. Due to the lack of air conditioning and gaining bad smells throughout the ship, more and more people are sleeping out on the decks.

Photograph courtesy of NBC News – The Today Show

This latest event on a Carnival cruise ship should not come as a surprise. Back on November 8, 2010, the Carnival Splendor endured the same fate. A 7-day cruise to Mexico turned nightmarish for its 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members after a fire broke out in the engine room. The ship was approximately 150 miles south of San Diego, CA. It took hours for Carnival crew members to extinguish the fire, and several people were injured in the panic.

Much like passengers aboard the Carnival Triumph are experiencing now, passengers of the Carnival Splendor had very little to eat for days, and suffered through 96 hours of extremely poor hygienic conditions.

Several months after the Splendor fire, it was finally determined that the fire emerged from the aft engine room, and that second engine room of the ship failed to start, which should have allowed to maintain power throughout the ship.

The Carnival Triumph is scheduled to be towed back to the United States and arrive in Mobile, AL on Thursday. The Carnival Splendor was also towed by a tug boat, back to San Diego, CA.

Carnival so far is reporting that all passengers are safe and no injuries were sustained as a result of the fire. Carnival’s statement is eerily similar to the statement made in the aftermath of the Carnival Splendor fire, yet it was inaccurate. Carnival Cruise, like any other cruise line, is held to the same standard of providing a safe environment for its passengers at all times, whether an emergency occurs during the cruise or not.

Could stranded passengers hold Carnival accountable for this preventable mess?
The answer is probably not. the fire aboard the Splendor gave Carnival the opportunity to find out what to do if such circumstances were to happen again. Carnival has jumped in front of the problem this time around. Carnival will refund all passengers aboard the Triumph, and will refund the cruise tickets of all passengers scheduled to sail aboard the Triumph for weeks to come. Accepting a refund does not waive a passenger’s rights to file a lawsuit against Carnival, but it certainly hinders the perception that passengers were not taken care of by the cruise line.

Secondly, and most importantly, the emergency aboard the Triumph does not change the existing thresholds in order to sue any cruise line. For one, a passenger will have to show that they have sustained a personal injury. Without provable and legitimate damages, a lawsuit will be dismissed within weeks of being filed. Second, even if a passenger sustains legitimate injuries, they must prove that their injuries were caused by Carnival’s negligence. Alleging that passengers have a claim for damages against the cruise line simply because their cruise/vacation were ruined by the fire is not enough.
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Published on: February 8, 2013

Court dismisses case against Costa Concordia based on forum non conveniens

By Leesfield & Partners

The District Court for the Southern District of Florida just issued an Order granting Carnival Corporation’s motion to dismiss a personal injury claim stemming from the Costa Concordia tragedy of January 2012.

This decision marks the first of its kind pertaining to a personal injury claim brought in Florida against the cruise line. In this case, several plaintiffs from Massachusetts filed a lawsuit in the Souther District of Florida against the operator and owner of the Costa Concordia (Costa Crociere, Costa Cruise Lines, Carnival Corporation, and Carnival Plc).

Judge Dimitrouleas rendered a 23-page decision which dismissed the plaintiffs’ personal injury claims, asserting in no uncertain terms that the Court was “thoroughly convinced that dismissal in favor of an Talian forum is proper.” The Court motivated its decision after “having carefully considered the balance of the factors against the strong pesumption in favor of Plaintiffs’ choice of forum.” In the end, every single factor weighed in by the Court tilted in favor of the Defendant.

Published on: February 6, 2013

Death of Cruise Ship employee of Miami-Based Cruise Line

By Leesfield & Partners

Last week, Australian authorities confirmed that 24-year-old Jackie Kastrinelis had died aboard the Seven Seas Voyager operated by Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Regent Seven Seas Cruises is based out of Miami, along with the other more well-known cruise lines suck as Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruises, Celebrity, or Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Details of Jackie Kastrinelis’ death have been far and few between. To date, the authorities have confirmed that Jackie’s body was discovered on Sunday in her cabin aboard the cruise ship. While investigators denied the existence of any evidence of foul play, an autopsy was performed Monday morning, leaving the possibility that the young woman’s death may have been caused by drugs or alcohol.

Jackie Kastrinelis was an employee aboard the Seven Seas Voyager. She worked as a singer and performer. She began her working career with Regent Seven Seas Cruise in March 2011 when she was offered a contract to perform for guests aboard ships while cruising around the world. At the time, Ms. Kastrinelis was a recent graduate of the University of Hartford (2010) where she received a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts.

Published on: December 12, 2012

Slip and Fall on a Cruise Ship – Not a rare occurrence

By Leesfield & Partners

You are on your cruise, walking around and enjoying the amenities. Then, all of a sudden, without warning, you are on the ground. You realize you have slipped and fallen, seriously injuring yourself. However, just because you are injured, don’t expect the cruise line to take responsibility for its negligence and compensate you.

Slip and fall accidents can happen anywhere on cruise ship. Such accidents can be caused by any number of reasons: a foreign substance on the ground, wet floor from mopping, a spill that was not properly detected and cleaned up, lack of anti-slip or anti-skid material on the flooring, defective or missing treads on stairs, lack of warning of a dangerous condition, or even insufficient lighting.

Under the law, a cruise line owes its passengers a duty of “reasonable care under the circumstances.” That is, the cruise line must take reasonable measure to ensure that the floors are free from foreign substances, spills promptly and timely cleaned up, physical or verbal warnings provided and ensure that the floor is otherwise maintained in a safe, clean, and dry condition. This duty requires a cruise line to take affirmative steps, such as have a reasonable inspection process in place, to timely detect and correct a dangerous condition.

To be found liable, a cruise line must have actual or constructive notice of a dangerous condition to allow the cruise line an opportunity to correct it. That means the cruise either knew about the condition or the situation existed for a sufficient period of time that the cruise line should have discovered it.

The cruise line will undoubtedly argue that fall was your fault. It is standard for the cruise line to blame the passenger and claim that any dangerous condition was an “open and obvious” condition which you should have seen and avoided. The cruise line will also argue that it had no notice of the dangerous condition or it did not exist for a sufficient time to enable it an opportunity to detect it.

So, what do you do if you fall while on a cruise ship?
Take stock of the situation. Look around and determine what caused you to fall: Was there a foreign substance on the floor? Are your clothes or shoes wet? If there is a foreign substance, how big is it, what color is it (water, soda, coffee)? Can you tell the cause of the foreign substance (is there a leaking beverage machine, is there melting ice, was it a high traffic area where a fellow passenger could have spilled something)? Where there any warning signs in place? Where there any mats or other non-skip material in place?

The second most important thing you must do next is gather evidence. Concretely, this means: Get the names of any witnesses; if there are any crew-members present get their name and/or position; take photographs of the scene.

You must make sure that you (or if you can’t, someone you are traveling with) reports the situation to the cruise line. The cruise line will give you a passenger statement form to complete. Be sure to indicate that your fall was a result of an accident and state the cause of the accident. For example: the floor was wet and I slipped, there were no warning signs present, etc. Once completed, demand a copy of your statement and medical records (if you were seen in the infirmary).

Next, demand the cruise line preserve surveillance footage. Cruise lines have security cameras throughout the vessel and will have likely captured your accident. This is important evidence which can help establish the cause of your accident, the length of time the dangerous condition existed, and the failure of the cruise line to take reasonable steps to detect and correct the dangerous condition. Remember to make this demand in writing.

These simple steps can help ensure the cruise line is held responsible for your injuries and that you are fully compensated.
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Published on: November 9, 2012

Boat Captain indicted in the death of Celebrity Cruises Passenger killed in Parasailing Accident

By Leesfield & Partners

On November 7, 2012, Kyle Coleman was arrested and indicted in the parasailing accident which caused the death of Bernice Kraftcheck. Almost a year ago to the day, Coleman, 32, was the captain of a small boat Turtle, in charge of performing parasailing excursions for Caribbean Watersports & Tours, a corporation based out of the U.S. Virgin Island.

Bernice Kraftcheck and her daughter Danielle Haese were on a Celebrity Cruise at the time, aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. They purchased the St. Thomas shore excursion aboard the cruise ship. According to the indictment, when the mother/daughter tandem was lifted up in the parasail, the wind conditions were deteriorating rapidly. Within minutes, the tow-line broke due to increasingly strong winds, and caused the parasail and its two occupants to plummet from the sky and crash into the water. The force of the wind and the water condition were such that the parasail was continuously propelled and dragged the two passengers for several minutes, causing the death of Bernice and serious injuries to her daughter Danielle.

Kyle Coleman.jpg Since these tragic events took place last November, the Coast Guard performed a meticulous investigation by marine casualty investigators and special agents from San Juan. The Coast Guard inspected the vessel and found numerous inadequacies, including an inadequate tow-line, and deficient vessel equipment. The master on the vessel was also unlicensed at the time of the incident. Based on these findings and countless witness accounts, Coleman was arrested and charged by a federal grand jury with being responsible for the accident. The one-count indictment is pursuant to 18 U.S.C.A. § 1115. Misconduct or neglect of ship officers. The statute provides in part that a captain employed on a vessel, by whose misconduct, negligence, or inattention to his duties, the life of any person is destroyed, shall be fined or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Published on: October 24, 2012

Former Assistant Cruise Director for Norwegian Cruise Line sentenced to 9 years in Federal Prison on Child Pornography Charges

By Leesfield & Partners

Last March, we reported on the arrest of Norwegian Cruise Lines’ Assistant Cruise Director, Senad Djedovic. Last week, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday sentenced Djedovic to 9 years in federal prison.

The details of the alleged crimes were discussed in detail in our previous article: Norwegian Cruise Line’s crewmember arrested after having sex with 16-year-old female passenger

Facing mounting evidence, Djedovic plead guilty to possessing child pornography last Summer. Investigators discovered photos and videos depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit acts on Djedovic’s computers. Among them were approximately 20 photos sent by a 16-year-old female passenger whom Djedovic met on the Norwegian Star, a cruise ship Djedovic was assigned to as the Assistant Cruise Director.

Last May in Court, he admitted to having engaged in sexual acts with the minor girl while on the ship and to having exchanged explicit photos with her after the cruise. In his plea agreement, Djedovic declared that he knew the girl was 16-years-old and underage.

senad djedovic arrest.jpg Ultimately, this crime and criminal would never have been discovered or prosecuted had Djedovic himself not bragged about it. Days after the cruise was over, Djedovic began talking about what he did to and in front of other crew-members, even showing to some of them the photos he had received from the minor passenger. One of the crew-members alerted the authorities and Djedovic was arrested shortly thereafter by the FBI.

Sex crimes aboard cruise ships are becoming more and more frequent and the prosecution of individuals who engage in sexual acts with minor passengers are prosecuted more and more often. This latest case is however very troubling because the criminal involved was a cruise employee. Djedovic was employed by Norwegian Cruise Lines from 2006 through 2012, until he was arrested.
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Published on: September 19, 2012

Indictment following the cruise gang rape of 15-year-old girl

By Leesfield & Partners

Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog reported last month that Casey Dickerson was arrested on rape charges. Dickerson was accused of having organized, initiated, and participated in the gang rape of a minor child while on a Carnival cruise, sailing on the Carnival Sensation.

The terrifying detail of the attack were disclosed here after Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog obtained a copy of the criminal complaint filed against the 31-year-old married man.

This week, a federal grand jury heard evidence and testimony surrounding the events that took place on August 19, 2012, in the ship’s cabin U-212. The grand jury rendered its decision and indicted Dickerson on multiple sex charges. The defendant has been held in a Central Florida jail since his arrest on August 20, despite Dickerson claiming he did not have sex with the young child and that he was drunk at the time with limited recollection of the events.