Cruise Ship Accident Lawyer Blog

Cruise Ship Industry: The Wild West of the Sea

October 10, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

When you fly on a commercial airplane, you have an expectation that the airline has met specific safety regulations. The same goes for a trip on an Amtrak train. However, such an expectation is absent, or at least should be, when you purchase a ticket on a cruise ship. Why? Because the cruise ship industry is an unregulated industry. This is extremely concerning to our team of cruise ship injury attorneys.

International Waters: Free For All

When a cruise ship visits a U.S. port, it must meet some regulations and is subject to inspection by the U.S. Coast Guard. However, if you are taking a cruise that goes into international waters (e.g., cruise voyages to the Bahamas, the Caribbean, etc.) only the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has authority over safety and operational standards. The IMO is part of the United Nations and generally does not exercise strict regulatory oversight. In fact, the IMO has never ordered the docking of multiple ships based on safety concerns and it is unclear that it even has that authority, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

Where are the Lifeguards? Cruise Lines Must Take Safety Precaution Seriously

October 3, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

You take your family on a cruise featuring a huge Olympic-sized swimming pool on deck. Your kids are excited to get a chance to enjoy the water while on the ship. However, when you arrive at the pool you notice something quite troubling – no lifeguards. For our team of cruise ship injury lawyers, not having a lifeguard on duty is simply unacceptable and extremely dangerous.

As of the date of this posting, only Disney requires lifeguards to be on duty at swimming pools onboard cruise ships. You read that correctly – out of all the various cruise lines (e.g., Carnival, Viking, Winstar, etc.) only one liner requires on-duty lifeguards. The other cruise lines appear to have decided that since lifeguards are not legally required, they do not want to invest in this important safety precaution.

There does not appear to be any other legitimate reason for not having at least one lifeguard on duty at swimming pools on cruise ships, especially with so many ships being occupied by families with young children able to access the pools. The cruise ship industry has grown precipitously with mega cruise ships featuring massive pools utilized by hundreds of passengers. These cruise liners must understand that a drowning can occur in the blink of an eye. In fact, in many instances, a drowning situation may not even be recognized by a passenger until it is too late.

Delay in Care – A Major Risk with Cruise Ship Injuries

September 22, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

A 24-year-old woman fell and suffered serious head trauma while aboard a Carnival Victory cruise ship. News reports indicate that she is now fighting for her life and may be paralyzed unable to ever walk again. Our team of Miami cruise ship injury lawyers are shocked and saddened by this news report. It begs the question – could this traumatic injury have been prevented?

The details about what exactly caused the passenger to fall on the cruise ship remains a mystery, as of the date of this posting. However, what we do know is shocking. The young woman reportedly hit her head hard, but was not taken off the cruise ship through medevac to the hospital for six to eight hours, according to MyFoxBoston.com. In that six-to-eight hour delay, she suffered multiple strokes.

A delay of that length is wholly unacceptable. Why she was not medevacced immediately upon

Arbitration Clauses – The Secret Weapon Used by Cruise Lines to Circumvent the Seventh Amendment

September 17, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

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Cruise liners spend millions of dollars on advertising aimed at the “passenger experience” and portraying the cruise experience as one where your enjoyment and safety are paramount. What they do not tell you is the lengths to which they have gone to protect themselves from potential civil liability if an accident, attack, or other terrible incident occurs on their ship. If you or a loved one is seriously hurt on a cruise, our team of Miami cruise ship injury lawyers has some sobering news: The fine print hidden on the back of a cruise ticket, written in such small font so as to avoid practically anyone’s notice, protects most cruise liners from responsibility for their carelessness.

Limitations on Your Seventh Amendment Right to a Jury Trial

Sexual Assaults on Cruise Ships

September 8, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Recently, a passenger sued Carnival Cruise ship on account of suffering a sexual assault by an unidentified individual while using the ladies’ restroom in the ship and alleged that, in spite of reporting the incident to the support staff on the same day, no active measure was taken by the cruise ship crew or personnel. Our team of Miami cruise ship lawyers are not surprised. This brings to light the fact that sexual assaults on cruise ships are not uncommon at all.

What to Do if You are Sexually Assaulted on a Cruise Ship

If you and/or the perpetrator of a sexual assault is an American national and the ship sails from or to a U.S. port, then the FBI will have jurisdiction over the case. In other circumstances, it is more complicated to determine which agency—or even which country—has jurisdiction. The location of the vessel, the nationality of the perpetrator or victim, ownership of the vessel, the points of embarkation and debarkation, and the country in which the vessel is flagged may all have an effect on jurisdiction.

Passenger Drowning at Sea – Understanding Your Rights

September 2, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch of UK Government (MAIB) recently published a report about the drowning of a 29-year-old female passenger in a swimming pool on board Sapphire Princess in the East China Sea. The victim was found floating face down in a swimming pool on board the Sapphire Princess. Despite rescue and resuscitation attempts by passengers and crew, the victim did not survive. In their report, MAIB concluded that the mere usage of a notice board expressing that lifeguards were not on duty and persons using the pools should do so at their own risk was inadequate and failed to sufficiently raise awareness among the passengers about the risks of unsupervised swimming. Our team of Miami cruise ship accident lawyers were saddened to hear about this awful incident when it occurred, but we are not surprised by the MAIB’s findings.

Serious safety issues were also noted by the MAIB team during their investigation, and officials specifically noted that:

With no dedicated pool attendants it was left to pool users and bystanders to recognize an emergency and raise an alarm.

Are Cruise Lines Living Up to Their Self-Adopted Passenger “Bill of Rights?

August 25, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) self-adopted a “Bill of Rights” in May of 2013 in order to allegedly fulfill the commitments of care and comfort to all their onboard passengers on luxury cruises throughout the world. Our team of experienced Miami maritime lawyers were hopeful, yet skeptical, of such a self-regulating scheme in the cruise industry. Named the International Cruise Line Passenger Bill of Rights, cruise ship passengers were provided with numerous “rights” including:

The right to disembark a docked ship if essential provisions such as food, water, restroom facilities, and access to medical care cannot adequately be provided onboard, subject only to the Master’s concern for passenger safety and security and customs and immigration requirements of the port.
The right to a full refund for a trip that is cancelled due to mechanical failures, or a partial refund for voyages that are terminated early due to those failures.

Carnival Plans to Introduce New Mega Cruise Ships

August 17, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Carnival Cruise Line has ordered “mega cruise ships” that will hold about 7,000 passengers each, making them essentially floating cities. Obviously, this means bigger profits for Carnival, as bigger ships will mean more passengers and more ticket sales. But is bigger going to mean better and safer? Probably not. Our team of experienced Miami maritime injury attorneys have handled serious cruise ship injury cases and, in many instances, the focus for the cruise line is to pack as many people on board, regardless of potential safety hazards.

Some maritime experts are getting worried about the security issues associated with putting so many people on a ship at the same time and going for extended voyages at sea. This can pose problems for smaller ports which do not have the infrastructure to handle potentially thousands of people at the same time, especially when it comes to providing emergency services. In fact, mega cruises can practically double a small port’s population in a matter of minutes by dumping an entire “city” full of passengers and creating havoc. In addition, the bigger cruise ships will, by having more number of people on board, increase the danger of outbreak of diseases like the norovirus (which recently occurred on two Royal Caribbean cruise ships in 2015). These mega ships are likely going to be magnets for criminals and thieves looking to steal purses, wallets, and other valuables.

A legislative proposal by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey named the Cruise Passenger Protection Act of 2015 (CPPA) will make it mandatory for cruise liners to have built-in state-of-the-art security technologies such as man-overboard detection systems and other relevant security systems. The proposed law would also provide for security measures for passengers who have been victims of crimes at sea. The CPPA is just a proposal at this point working its way through Congress. This means, as of now, the level of security on a cruise ship is dependent upon the discretion of the cruise line.

Crew Member Injuries on a Cruise Ship

August 12, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

If a crew member is hurt on the job while at sea, do they have to file a workers compensation claim? This is a question asked to our team of experienced Miami maritime lawyers quite often by injured cruise ship workers and their loved ones. The answer is that crew members do not use the traditional workers compensation system that land-based workers may access. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly known as the Jones Act, is a federal legislation that aims to protect seamen’s rights in cases of on-board accidents or death. Pursuant to this act, compensation can be claimed by a workman employed in a marine vessel when an injury is brought upon by the careless act of an employer or co-worker in course of his employment. Vessel owners can likewise be liable if the accident occurred due to dangerous conditions on the ship.

However, for sailors to acquire damages under the Jones Act, they must give adequate verification that they are, indeed, seamen. Federal courts have deciphered the term “sailor” to mean a person who is employed in a vessel or fleet that operates in waterways used for national or international commerce, or in other words, operates in navigable waters. As long as the person is engaged in some kind of work that is related with the vessel’s objective, the relative significance of the sailor’s expected set of job responsibilities is not critical.

The most common injuries incurred by crew members while on duty aboard a cruise liner are:

Criminal Acts at Sea

August 3, 2015 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Cruise ships are not always about welcome drinks, sundecks, and romantic dinners under the moonlit night. There are, unfortunately, many serious crimes that can occur on board a cruise ship, no matter how secure you think you may be. Petty thefts, serious assaults, battery, and even rapes have been reported on cruise ships. In fact, over 950 cruise ship crimes were reported to the FBI between 2011 and 2012, and those are only the crimes that the FBI is aware of. Unfortunately, many crimes, especially sexual assaults, go unreported. Our team of Miami maritime lawyers are here to help and have handled many cases for victims of serious criminal acts while on board a cruise ship or other vessel.

Get Treatment, if Needed

If you or a loved one are the victim of a physical assault or rape by a fellow passenger or crew member, seek immediate medical attention. Cruise ships should have trained medical professionals on board to provide treatment. Be sure, once you return to land, to get copies of the medical records so you can provide them to the authorities and to your attorney. This will help established that the incident occurred if a claim is pursued against the cruise liner and/or an employee of the liner.