Articles Tagged with maritime attorneys

A lawsuit based in maritime has been filed in the brutal beating of a cruise passenger that we mentioned on our blog a few weeks ago. With the filing of the lawsuit, the victim’s attorney has revealed the carelessness of the cruise line that contributed to the vicious attack. Our Florida maritime law firm is monitoring the case closely.

The Horrific Attack

The case stems from a  Holland America cruise ship passenger was brutally beaten by a Holland America employee, who apparently had a master key and used it to gain entry into the victim’s cabin. The employee tried to strangle the woman with a phone cord, smashed her with a laptop and other blunt objects, and even tried to throw her overboard. She was also sexually assaulted. At one point, her oxygen supply was completely cut off from the choking. The entire attack lasted about an hour, until the victim managed to escape the cabin into the hallway.

Our Florida Cruise Ship Attorneys have dedicated their decades of experience to representing cruise ship passengers that are injured by the acts or omissions of the cruise ship industry and its employees. This past Tuesday, the New York Times published a short editorial discussing the questionable actions of South Korean ferry captain, Lee Jun-seok, in abandoning the ship while it sank with hundreds of passengers still aboard. The South Korean ferry, Sewol, turned on its side and sank last Wednesday, leaving two-thirds of the 476 passengers dead or missing. So far as we know, none of those aboard included American citizens.

Captain Lee and two-thirds of ferry’s crew survived, many of whom, including Lee himself, jumped ship shortly after it began to go down. According to reports, only one of the ferry’s 47 lifeboats was deployed, and the order to abandon ship wasn’t broadcast until 30 minutes after the ferry began to sink. One crew member claimed that an immediate evacuation was not conducted the ferry’s officers were attempting to stabilize the vessel. To date, Lee and six crew members of the Sewol have also been arrested, with others under investigation. South Korean law allows for an individual convicted of abandoning passengers at a time of crisis to be punished by life in prison.

The tragedy of the Sewol casts the spotlight back on the cruise industry, especially given the similarity of the allegations against Lee to those asserted against the captain of the Carnival cruise ship Costa Concordia in 2012. In one of the worst cruise disasters in history, the Costa Concordia crashed into the rocks off the coast of Giglio Island, Italy, resulting in the deaths of 32 individuals and injuries to dozens of others.

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