10 THINGS CRUISE LINES DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW, FROM A MARITIME ATTORNEY WHO SUES CRUISE LINES
1.THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
The statute of limitations for most cruise line injury cases is only one year. Check with a maritime attorney, not a car accident attorney, about the specifics of your case. The cruise line will talk with you about your medical bills, and sympathize, and email…until you pass that statute of limitations. You won’t hear from them after that; they know you are done.
- SEX CRIMES HAPPEN ON BOARD, AND SOME ARE COMMITTED BY CREWMEN.
You can check the FBI statistics. The cruise lines finally agreed to report sex assaults to the FBI. Some of the sex assaults are by crew members against passengers. Many involve alcohol. Some involve minors. Watch your kids on cruises. Do not allow your kids to stay out late.
- IF YOU FALL, THE CRUISE LINE WILL SAY THEY HAD NO NOTICE.
Not just on falls, but on any type of condition on the vessel which caused you injury the cruise line almost always claims they had “no notice” about the hazardous condition. When a passenger sits in a chair owned by the cruise line and it breaks and causes injury to a passenger, should the cruise get away with that? It did, by claiming they had no notice of the hazardous condition of the chair.
“Tesoriero did not establish that Carnival had actual or constructive notice that the [Carnival cabin] chair [which broke and injured her] was dangerous. This is fatal to her case.” Tesoriero v. Carnival Corp., 965 F.3d 1170, 1187 (11th Cir. 2020).
In other words, Carnival’s passenger who sat in a Carnival chair which broke and injured her, Carnival said they did not know it was going to break, so Carnival paid nothing to the passenger.
- CRUISE LINES CONTEND THEY ARE NOT THE GUARANTORS OF YOUR SAFETY ON THE VESSEL.
While in advertisements the cruise lines woo you with Caribbean music, sun, and drinks, in legal filings they say they are not the guarantors of your safety. Remember that when security shows up to “investigate” your injury. Security is there to build a case as to why the cruise line did nothing wrong, and you did.
- IF YOU ARE INJURED, THE CRUISE LINE WILL TREAT YOU LIKE A CLAIMANT, NOT A BELOVED PASSENGER.
Similar to number 4 above, security shows up when you are injured to prove it wasn’t the cruise line’s fault. At www.888BoatLaw.com many injured passengers tell us they have been on a cruise lines cruises many times, and they have attained a certain level with the cruise line. Not any more, now you are viewed as a claimant. The cruise line will hound you to fill out a passenger injury statement. Most cruise lines have a questionnaire aimed at deflecting fault from the cruise line, and it directs a passenger to say “no one was at fault”, or “another passenger was at fault”, or “I was at fault”. But you will not find a section in that questionnaire for how the cruise line was at fault. Note that these passenger injury statements are often presented and completed while the injured passenger is still in distress from the incident and injuries.
- IF YOU ARE HURT ON AN EXCURSION THE CRUISE LINE WILL DISAVOW ANY RESPONSIBILITY TO YOU.
Many excursions are conducted in foreign countries. The cruise lines often sell these foreign excursions either on the cruise line’s website or right on the cruise ship. The cruise lines run ads on the vessels to get you to go on various excursions. Though you may pay your money directly to the cruise line’s website or on the cruise ship, if you are hurt on the excursion the cruise line will tell you to make a claim against the excursion company that’s based in a foreign country. The cruise line will disavow any responsibility to you for injuries on an excursion, even if they sold it to you. Second thing the cruise lines don’t want you to know, but we at www.888BoatLaw.com have witnessed is many people get hurt on excursions in foreign countries.
- THE DOCTOR IS HIRED BY THE CRUISE LINE.
Perhaps obvious already, the doctor is hired by the cruise line. But that means the doctor will be in on the endeavor to prove you were at fault and cruise line was not. The doctor will administer a breathalyzer trying to find the presence of alcohol. Ask yourself, if this is a non-life-threatening injury, are they taking the breathalyzer for you—or for them. The doctor will write a medical report which insinuates your fault, and which often misquotes the injured person. Take someone into the infirmary with you. When you are out of the infirmary write down what you told the ship’s doctor and what they told you.
- YOUR CRUISE TICKET IS YOUR CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND THE CRUISE LINE.
Careful, the cruise ticket, which you may not have received a hard copy of, is more than just a ticket. It is the legal contract between you and the cruise line. This tells you the statute of limitations, where your claim has to be presented, and what written notice you have to give the cruise line about your injury, and by what date. A U.S. Supreme Court case known as Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585, 111 S. Ct. 1522, 113 L. Ed. 2d 622 (1991) gave cruise lines the ability to dictate in the cruise ticket where your claim has to be made. For most claims originating from the United States the venue for your claim is in Miami, Florida. It is important to contact a maritime attorney, like us at www.888BoatLaw.com, to examine the specific facts of your case. Remember, these are very short statutes of limitation, act quickly.
- CRUISE LINES DO NOT WANT TO KEEP A PAPER TRAIL AGAINST THEMSELVES.
In a recent deposition the attorneys at www.888BoatLaw.com took of a corporate representative of a major cruise line, that representative admitted they do not keep “sweep sheets” to prove a bathroom was cleaned like the cruise line always contends. When pressed that the cruise line previously had sweep sheets, so why not now, the cruise line representative stated, “Well one of our ships was keeping sweep sheets, even though they weren’t supposed to”. Why would it be their vessel was not supposed to keep the documentation that the restrooms had been cleaned as claimed? Because sweep sheets are documentation that the employees are or not actually performing the task like they claim. So, the cruise lines get rid of the accountability by getting rid of the paper trail. That is not a “safety first” decision.
- CRUISE LINES LOVE WHEN YOU HIRE A CAR ACCIDENT ATTORNEY.
Yes, the cruise lines love when you take your serious cruise ship injury case to a car accident attorney. It is because the cruise lines understand that very, very, few auto crash attorneys know anything about maritime law. But recognize: the cruise lines’ defense attorneys are going to know the maritime law that applies to your cruise ship case. (We at www.888BoatLaw.com have received calls from car accident attorneys who have gone past the one-year statute of limitations on cruise ship injury cases.) One other dynamic at play is that the cruise lines easily know who is licensed in Florida to file suit for you. This is important when you consider that 95% of cruise ship injury cases have to be filed in Miami—and to do so, the attorney has to be licensed in Florida. You don’t hire a podiatrist for a heart problem, don’t hire an auto accident attorney for a cruise ship injury case.
You can trust the strength of our 25 years of experience successfully handling cruise ship injury cases for our deserving clients.
WWW.888BoatLaw.com practices through all of Florida.
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