Cruise Ship Liability San Diego Boat Accident Lawyers

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Approximately 7 million people worldwide go on cruises. Some go on long-weekend three-day cruises, others take six-month cruises, while many take cruises of two to four weeks. While the vast majority of passengers will have a delightful, memorable, and uneventful cruise, to some their dream cruise they had been planning for months, if not years, turns into tragedy when they are seriously injured or killed due to the carelessness (“negligence”) of the cruiseliner and its employees. Anyone of the following factors can turn a fun cruise into a nightmare due to an injury or death from any of the following: 

• Slip/trip and fall incidents

• Hazardous decks, stairways, and walkways

• Inadequate ship maintenance

• Water slide, wave pool, and swimming pool accidents

• Contaminated food and food poisoning resulting in serious injuries

• Passengers who fall overboard

• Unsafe doors that close too quickly or too forcefully

• Drownings

• Head and Traumatic Brain Injuries

• Spinal cord injuries

• Infectious diseases and viruses

• Sexual or other physical assaults by crew members

• Explosions and fires

• Unseaworthy conditions

• Injuries while on shore activities and excursions arranged or sanctioned by the cruise ship company

The legal rights of a passenger who has suffered an injury, or a passenger who has been killed, on a cruise ship depend largely on two things: maritime law and the provisions of your contract/ticket for carriage. (Deaths occurring more than three miles off the United States’ coast come under the jurisdiction of the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) discussed separately). Under maritime law, a shipowner owes passengers a duty to take ordinary reasonable care under the circumstances. A passenger’s contract/ticket is carefully drafted by the cruiseline not only to tell you of your rights, but just as important—if not moreso—it governs such things as what you can sue the cruiseline for, the location where you must bring suit, how soon after the incident you must give written notice of your claim to the cruiseline (usually six months) and the length of time you have to sue the cruiseline (usually one year). What law applies also depends on where the ship was at the time of the injury. For instance, if the ship was docked at Long Beach, was in Mexican territorial waters, or was on the high seas, different rules may apply changing the type and amount of damages you may be entitled to.

A passenger cruise ticket for an ocean voyage constitutes a maritime contract. Most ticket/contracts require that any lawsuits against the cruise ship must be filed only in certain places, usually cities or counties where the cruiseline has its offices. The top places designated by the contract/ticket for filing a suit for personal injuries or death arising out of a domestic cruise ship’s negligent conduct are Miami, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. For purely international cruises, such as a Mediterranean cruise aboard a Greek cruise ship, if you should be injured or a loved one killed on the cruise, you are probably going to have to prosecute the claim in Greece, even though you purchased your ticket in the U.S. But if you left aboard a cruiseline out of the Port of Miami and went on a Caribbean cruise and returned to the Port of Miami, chances are that your contract/ticket provides that lawsuits against the cruiseline for injury or death must be brought in Florida.

In determining where you can and must file your lawsuit against the cruiseline, the contract/ticket contains language of where you must sue the cruiseline if you have been injured or a loved one killed on a cruise. The standard applied is that the ticket must reasonably communicate the existence of important terms and the passenger must have the opportunity to become meaningful informed of those terms. The court will also look to the location of any restrictive provisions and simplicity of the language used to limit a passenger’s rights. The question boils down to whether, taken together, the various notices and provisions of the cruise contract/ticket are legally sufficient to give effect to the various liability and claim procedures it contains. For example, a passenger who claims that requiring the case to be filed thousands of miles away has a heavy burden of demonstrating why enforcement of the site specified by the contract/ticket is unreasonable. Whether the terms and conditions of the passage contract were reasonably communicated is a question of law for the court to determine.

A cruise ship passenger who has been injured because of a cruise ship’s employee’s negligence is entitled to recover monetary damages for past, present, and future medical expenses, lost wage—both past and present—loss of earning power, and, if within three miles of the U.S. coastline, his or her pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. Outside the three-mile limit, the passenger must allege a physical injury to recover damages for injuries. In one case involving a cruise ship, approximately 210 passengers brought suit against the cruiseline and its captain for extreme emotional distress. The gist of the cases was that their emotional injuries occurred because the captain sailed into bad weather that the ship’s officer was aware of but did not avoid. The cruise line proved that some 140 of the passengers did not have any objective physical injuries and were therefore not entitled to recover for their purely emotional distress.

If you are injured or a loved one killed on a cruise ship, you should report your injury or death to the cruise ship employees as soon as possible. If there is a medical doctor or other health care professional aboard the ship, you should contact him or her for immediate treatment in the case of an injury. It may be necessary for you to be taken off the ship by a helicopter, or the ship may have to change its destination and head to the nearest port of call so that you can get prompt medical treatment.

If you are able to, take pictures of the area where you were inured. If you’re not able to do it yourself, then you should instruct your spouse or traveling companion to take pictures for you. Don’t forget to take pictures of your injuries. If you didn’t bring a camera and your mobile phone doesn’t take pictures, a disposable camera can be purchased in the ship’s gift shop for around $10.00. If you are unable to do so, your spouse or traveling companion should get the names and addresses of all witnesses to the accident, and if possible a brief statement from them relating what they saw. The cruise ship employees have a duty to assist you in collecting this information when you are unable to do so yourself.

If you have been injured or a loved one killed while aboard a cruise ship, you should contact a personal injury law with experience in maritime law and cruise ship injuries and deaths as soon as possible so your claim is not barred by the “statute of limitations.” The statute of limitations tells you how long you have to file a lawsuit in federal court or you will lose the right to sue forever. The time you have to sue a cruise ship for injuries and deaths is determined by maritime law and the contract/ticket with the cruise ship. Although the normal time a person has to file under maritime law is three years, by signing the contract/ticket with the cruiseline, that time is generally shortened to one year. And before you can bring a suit in court, the contract/ticket usually requires that you must first file a claim with the cruiseline within six months of the incident.

The contract/ticket may also require you to submit a “bill of particulars” to the cruise ship within the prescribed time. Typically, you must send notice of your injuries or loved one’s death and tell them why you feel the cruise ship is liable to the cruise liner within six months, and file suit against them within one year of the incident. The ticket inevitably will provide that you must present your claim to the cruiseline within six months, and if you don’t, you lose your right to sue the cruiseline forever. Unless your claim is very small, you should not attempt to negotiate with the cruise line itself. If you do send notice to the cruise line of your claim, you should send it via registered mail, return receipt requested to prove you sent notice of your claim in on time. The cruisliner is usually identified at the top of your ticket. Do not make the mistake of sending notice to the travel agent or ticket agent. The lawsuit is against the cruiseline, and timely (i.e., six months) written notice of the accident and injury must be sent to it.

If your injuries are serious, or a passenger died on the cruise, you should contact an attorney promptly after you return home. An attorney experienced in cruise ship liability will know how and where to file the notice. Don’t forget to gather your contract/ticket, and all other written information, pamphlets, and all other receipts and pictures so you will have them ready when you meet with your lawyer. If you are injured and unable to go to the lawyer’s office, the lawyer will usually come to your home or the hospital. If your injuries are serious or a death is involved, but you think you can handle the case yourself, think again. One respected study of injured and deceased victims demonstrated that, even after paying the lawyer’s fees, injured persons who had lawyers handle their case for them ended up with more money in their pockets than people who handled their cases by themselves.

A cruise line is liable for injuries to its passengers only where it has actual or implied (“constructive”) notice of a dangerous condition; without knowledge of any unreasonable risk or danger, the cruise line has no duty to warn. In maritime law, constructive notice of an onboard dangerous condition is shown when it has existed long enough to give rise to an inference that crewmembers must have noticed it.

Suppose you are on a cruise that stops at an island and offers passengers various excursions, from souvenir shopping to paragliding or Jetskiing. One passenger goes out on the Jetski and is injured by another Jetski that deliberately ran into her. Can the injured passenger sue the cruise line? Generally not. The contract/ticket usually states that the cruise line is not liable for injury caused by any act not shown to be caused by its negligence or the negligence of its employees. The contract/ticket usually provides that shore excursions and other tours may be owned and/or operated by independent contractors and the cruise line makes no representation and assumes no liability for the wrongful conduct of the provider/operator of the shore excursion. The contract/ticket may state that if the passenger takes part in organized activities, whether on the ship or as part of a shore excursion, he or she assumes the risk of injury and the cruise ship is not liable or responsible for it.

Let’s say that you’re a female passenger aboard a cruise ship and are assaulted and raped by a ship’s employee who had a master key to the passenger cabins. Can the cruise line be held liable for the sexual assault? In some cases, when an employee sexually assaults a woman, his employer is not liable if he had no reason to know of the employee’s dangerousness. But when the employer (the cruise line) gives an employee a master key or card to access all passengers’ cabins, the employer can be held liable for the employee’s acts. Also, the cruise line can be held independently liable for the wrongful acts of its employees, such as where it was negligent in running a background check on the employee or the employer supervisor was negligent in supervising the employee, knew he was dangerous, but failed to terminate him. But not all states will hold the employer legally responsible (liable) for the intentional assaults of its employees.

When deciding on which attorney or law firm you should hire to represent you, you should be guided by several factors. First of all, you should choose someone with experience in your type of injury. Second, you will want a lawyer or law firm that is competent, able to handle the case. Third, you want a lawyer or law firm with integrity. Fourth, you want to retain a lawyer or law firm that has the highest ethical standards.

Fifth, you want a lawyer who is not afraid of taking your case to trial. Many lawyers who handle personal injury cases are not comfortable trying a case before a jury and will advise their client to accept a settlement that is smaller than if the client were represented by a lawyer who is not afraid to go to trial. Insurance companies know which attorneys are not bluffing about taking the case to trial if they don’t give the injured client the maximum settlement, and which lawyers and law firms are settlement mills who will convince their client to settle for a lower sum to avoid having to go to trial. While it is true that approximately 95 percent of personal injury cases settle without going to trial, from the moment the client first walks into his or her office, the lawyer must prepare the case as though it is going to trial. It is not unheard of for the insurance company’s lawyer to come up with a higher, reasonable settlement figure for the client “on the courthouse steps” right before trial is set to begin.

Practical considerations you will want to consider include whether the lawyer or law firm will give your case the attention it deserves and keep you up to date on the progress of your case. You also want a lawyer or law firm that returns your telephone calls or e-mails promptly (generally no more than 24 hours), and explains things to you in plain English rather than obscure legalese. Remember, though, that yours is not the only case the lawyer is handling so he or she may not get to your file as quickly as you’d like. 

If you have been injured or a loved one killed in a cruise ship accident, you should contact an experienced personal injury law firm as soon as possible. It is also important to contact an experienced personal injury law firm promptly, as the law firm may want to send its own investigators to examine the evidence before it is lost or changed. For example, in an automobile accident, the lawyer’s investigator will want to go to the scene of an automobile accident to inspect and take pictures of the vehicles, the accident site, and any dangerous condition that caused or contributed to the accident, especially before there is a change in the condition of the area or vehicle.

Pictures of the victim should be taken while he or she still has visible cuts, scars, disfigurements, abrasions, bruises, and other visible injuries, as a jury (and insurance adjuster) will otherwise generally see your client in good health, after broken bones have mended and plastic surgery or time has eliminated or diminished the scars and disfigurement. It is not unusual for a case to take several years before the actual trial, by which time you may appear to have improved greatly from your injuries, when in fact you still suffer such disabilities as severe back pain, injuries to your hands, or psychological and emotional disorders. But with pictures taken at the time of the incident will show the jury just how badly you were hurt and how far you’ve come. The attorney or his or her investigator will also want to talk to any witnesses to the accident as soon as possible while the facts are still fresh in their minds, and will also want to keep track of the whereabouts of the witnesses if they are needed to testify at trial.

An experienced personal injury law firm can also help with seeing to it that you obtain appropriate and thorough medical care for your physical, emotional, and psychological injuries suffered as a result of the accident. The attorneys in the firm can also do everything possible to ensure that you obtain full compensation for your medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish, property damage, lost wages, and all of your other injuries and damages.