Cruise Ship Coronavirus wrongful death attorney
The cruise industry was an early epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak before the ships were ordered off the water by world governments. There were countless horror stories of boats that became floating death traps as passengers were stuck on board for weeks as numerous people were sickened and died. The saddest part is that many of these disasters could have been avoided had the cruise companies exercised sound judgment and heeded to the numerous warnings that there was a looming crisis. Instead, many of them put profits over people and set sail in the face of dire health warnings. Now, the cruise industry is besieged by wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits that have been brought by passengers. In addition, companies are also being sued by passengers who have been denied refunds for cancelled cruises as a result of the global pandemic.
Covid-19 Cruise Line wrongful death lawsuit
By February 2020, it was apparent that something was very wrong worldwide with a global pandemic. News of a deadly and highly contagious illness that had overtaken a large Chinese city was already widely publicized. By this point, nearly the entire world knew how easy it was for this disease to spread and the looming capacity that the world faced. However, cruise companies did business like there were no problems with few if any, precautions taken. Many cruise operators sent boats out onto the water knowing that there was an outbreak and kept them on the water when there were sick passengers on the ship.
Cruise Ship Coronavirus Disasters
Numerous cruise ships became their own centers of outbreaks. Here are some examples of disasters and fatal incidents on the water in which large numbers of passengers were sickened or killed:
Diamond Princess – The Diamond Princess was the first ship to have an outbreak onboard the boat. This should have placed every other cruise company on notice of the deadly effects that COVID-19 would have on cruise passengers. The boat was quarantined outside of Yokohama, Japan for nearly a month with thousands of passengers on board. By the time the passengers were released, over 700 people contracted COVID-19 and numerous passengers died on the ship. The infection control procedures on the ship have been strongly criticized and one expert called the ship a “COVID-19 mill.”
Costa Luminosa – Passengers claim that the cruise company did not inform them that the previous cruise had several confirmed cases of COVID-19 before they boarded. After the ship set sail, numerous passengers caught the virus and three died. Even after the previous cruise had several documented cases of coronavirus, the cruise company decided that the boat would not be docked for the next cruise. Passengers asked about refunds and were told that the cruise line would not be offering them because the cruise was going off as planned. Many ended up taking a cruise on a boat that had COVID-19 germs from the previous trip because they were afraid of losing their money. Even when COVID-19 began to spread on the ship, the crew waited seven days to isolate the passengers.
Grand Princess – This was one of the early outbreaks of the illness. Numerous passengers were sickened on the boat in February, when COVID-19 was just beginning to spread. The passengers only began to test positive after they had returned from their cruise. However, the boat had embarked on another voyage. The cruise ship became stranded when it was ordered to return to California but the passengers could not disembark. They were stuck on the boat for several days before they could disembark to quarantine. At least 100 people on the boat later learned that they contracted coronavirus, and one of the early fatalities was a passenger on the cruise.
In all, over 40 ships worldwide had documented cases of COVID-19. With so many people stuck in close quarters, cruise ships are a natural breeding ground for contagious illness. This is magnified dramatically when the disease is as contagious as COVID-19.
Cruise Ship Owners Can Be Held Liable for Injuries
The cruise line is not automatically liable for any injuries that you suffer on their ship. They are not automatically liable for any fatalities on their ship. Cruise operator could be liable and responsible for the health and safety of their passengers only if the cruise ship acted negligently and such negligence caused a passenger injury or death. The question is what the cruise did to create a hazardous condition. A cruise company is considered to be a common carrier. They have the duty to get their passengers to their destination safely and to protect them from harm. This could include injury and criminal activity on the boat. It may also encompass an illness that they contracted on the boat.
The Legal Test for Cruise Ship Lawsuits
The test for whether a cruise ship is liable for an injury suffered by a passenger is much the same as any other negligence case. There is a four-part test for these cases, and meeting all four of those elements is necessary to win the case. When it comes to a cruise ship operator or any other common carrier, a plaintiff must prove all of the following:
- The cruise ship company owed a duty of care to the plaintiff
- The company breached that duty by not acting as a reasonable cruise ship operator would
- The plaintiff suffered an injury
- The cruise ship company was the proximate cause of the injury. In other words, the plaintiff would not have been injured but for the actions (or omissions) of the cruise ship company.
Cruise ship Covid 19 death
Some may think that the cruise ship company has a heightened duty of care towards its passengers. However, that is not the case. As the U.S. Supreme Court has said, a cruise ship operator does not have an absolute obligation to guarantee their passengers’ safety. Instead, whether the company was negligent depends on the facts and circumstances of each case. As the Court has said, “There…must be some failure to exercise due care before liability may be imposed.”
There are numerous situations in the past where sickened customers have tried to hold a cruise ship company liable for illnesses that they contracted on board. There are occasional outbreaks of food poisoning and norovirus on cruise ships, and the companies face lawsuits as a result. These cases are slightly different because the origin of the virus was on the ship as opposed to someone bringing an illness onto the ship and it spreads.
COVID-19 Cruise Ship Lawsuits
Here, the coronavirus lawsuits against the cruise ship companies would be that they failed to protect their passengers on the ships with known dangers of the illness spreading. In some cases, the cruise lines continued to board passengers when they allegedly knew that there were already sick people on board.
The issue with lawsuits against cruise companies is that they try to make it very difficult for you to sue them in court. Many times, they even get away with the restrictions on lawsuits that they foist on you when you buy your ticket. Allow us to explain. When you purchase a cruise ticket, there are pages upon pages of terms and conditions that are a part of the agreement between you and the cruise operator. These are terms of the contract that you enter into with them every time you purchase a spot on one of their cruises. When you purchase the ticket, you accept the conditions that they set.
The Ways Companies Try to Keep You from Suing for wrongful death and other injuries
The cruise companies have very clever lawyers whose job it is to keep them from getting sued. While they cannot completely take away your legal rights to sue them, they certainly make it difficult. The cruise companies stick all sorts of onerous clauses into their contracts when it comes to your right to sue. For example, many cruise companies tell you that you can only sue them in federal court in certain states. Sometimes, they will put in a clause that will force you to arbitration with them before you can file a lawsuit. Many times, these restrictions hold up in court.
Many cruise companies will even throw in a provision that aims to keep you from filing a class-action lawsuit against them. Companies hate class-action lawsuits because it makes it easier for large numbers of plaintiffs to join together to sue them and it increases the risk that they may get hit with a large judgment.
This means that in order to file a lawsuit against a cruise company, you will need to file individually. Given the scope of their possible liability for what they allegedly did, lawyers should be willing to take individual cases against the cruise companies.
Contract limitations
There are some limitations to suing cruise companies for wrongful death and other injuries that you should know about. However, these do not make it impossible to sue the boat operator, and you may still recover if they were negligent. Nonetheless, it is vital to be aware of these if you were sickened on one of these cruise ships because they may affect your ability to file a lawsuit.
- As mentioned above, there are limitations on class action lawsuits against cruise operators
- There could be a shorter statute of limitations which may run as soon as a year, However, many of the cruise passengers sickened have begun to file lawsuits.
- You will need to give the cruise company notice within six months that you were injured.
- The cruise companies may not be liable for more than the value of the boat. However, given the massive amenity-laden boats of the present, this is not as much of an issue as it was in the past. Some of these cruise ships are worth well over a billion dollars.
- Some contracts try to prevent passengers from suing the cruise companies for wrongful death.
The cruise industry is not an easy group of companies to sue because they have managed to have laws passed in their favor. However, they can still be found at fault for an outbreak of coronavirus on their ship if it was reasonably foreseeable and they could have prevented it.
Cruise Companies may try to enforce contacts
This is what you have been told about cruise ship COVID-19 lawsuits. However, many courts will either ignore these clauses or just simply not enforce them if the lawsuit goes to trial. The cruise company will argue that the passengers effectively signed a contract when they purchased a ticket. Some judges may view these contracts as overreach and may not enforce the trial.
Much of what you have been told about the cruise ship contracts and your chances of success in a wrongful death lawsuit is what the cruise industry wants you to believe. They do not want you to file a death lawsuit against them. Despite what they want you to believe, it is not impossible to win a wrongful death cruise lawsuit against them in court.
Even with certain laws protecting them, cruise ship owners are still liable for negligence, wrongful death and for conditions that they could have foreseen. One can make a convincing argument that cruise lines should have been able to know that there would be COVID-19 cases, especially after previous passengers tested positive. One could also demonstrate that the ships’ crews could have done a better job of infection control once COVID-19 began to spread on the ship.
Have You or a Loved One Gotten COVID-19 on a Cruise? Get Legal Help Now
Suing a cruise company for wrongful death is not easy, but it is possible. The key is that you have to act quickly because they may have a shorter statute of limitations and they often need to be notified in a short time of your injury. If you are going up against a powerful cruise line, you will need to have legal help on your side. Contact a COVID-19 cruise ship attorney or a Coronavirus wrongful death lawyer today to find out how you can file a lawsuit against the company for the death of a loved one, spouse, child or family member. We can offer you a free consultation and filing a wrongful death cruise ship lawsuit costs you nothing unless you are able to financially recover from the cruise ship company. However, it is vital to act quickly. A cruise line wrongful death lawyer will help the family get the justice, answers and accountability for the wrongful death.