CRUISE SHIP INJURIES AND WRONGFUL DEATH Because of our unique position as leading maritime lawyers in South Florida, we often are asked to consult by lawyers and clients outside of South Florida, in the United States and other countries. We have represented cruise ship passenger for over 15 years with losses or injuries including wrongful death, traumatic brain injuries, spinal fractures and spinal injuries, herniated disks, severe broken bones and fractures, including leg, arm, hip, hand, finger and feet injuries, traumatic amputations, slips, burns, closed head injuries and traumatic brain injuries, assault and battery and sexual and other harassment. We have pursued claims from small children to passengers in their late 80s. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU ARE INJURED ON A CRUISE: ONE. SAVE YOUR TICKET. The ticket is a contract between you and the cruise line. It imposes several limitations and restrictions on your right to sue and notice requirement that must be given or your suit may be forever barred. We routinely provide the six month notice letter typically provided by this so-called contract language – did you really bargain for and negotiate this contract – as a courtesy to our clients so that they do not lose their right to sue. However, if you did not provide this six month notice, consult with us since our experience may still allow you to file suit. The most important limitation your ticket contract imposes is the one year statute of limitations which is absolute, and requires that you file suit generally in Dade County, Florida (depending on the cruise line, we will advise you as to that), and always within one year of the date of your accident. THREE. GET NAMES OF WITNESSES. After your incident there may be witnesses, people at the pool deck who saw you slip, peple in the lounge or disco who saw you trip over something or fall downstairs, other passengers or crew members in the spa who saw you slip on lotion left behind by an attendant or in the worst cases of sexual assault, abuse or attack, passengers who may have seen inapporpiate advances or behavior by crew members toward you or a loved one or family member or friend. Those observations may be critical as testimony and proof of your claim later. These people may live anywhere in the United States or in a foreign country. Individuals who were responsible may be foreigners – especially foreign seamen or crew members who oftentimes lives outside the United States. The more names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other contact information that you collect, the better we will be able to protect your case and defend your rights. Remember that the cruise line controls the ship, the scene, the premises, the conditions, the employees (in the case of crew members especially from poorer nations, literally control them economically, they are afraid to testify, however, the more information you can obtain from them at or shortly after the time of an incident the more likely they will be able to help you and the more likely we will be able to follow up with them and obtain favorable statements and testimony on your behalf. FOUR. OBTAIN IMMEDIATE AND APPROPRIATE MEDICAL CARE. Each ship is equipped with an infirmary and a ship’s doctor and nurses. Many of the seven day and longer day cruises have more than one ship’s physician and nurse. Insist upon immediate care. Go to the infirmary and if they are unavailable go to the purser’s desk or have somebody go on your behalf. Demand medical care. In the event that the ship’s doctor and/or infirmary is insufficient to care for your (in the most serious of injuries) insist that the captain, who has the ultimate obligation of care, return to the nearest port with the appropriate medical facilities or have you off-lifted by medivac or helicopter to an appropriate medical facility. The ship’s physician should still be able to stabilize you for airlift. Medical care on the ships vary from ship to ship and line to line. Recently, the Florida Supreme Court in the case of Carnival v. Carlisle determined that cruise ship owners and operators are not vicariously liable for the act of ship’s physicians. We believe that this is a bad decision by the Florida Supreme Court and directly affects and limits your rights as consumers and cruise ship passengers. Essentially, the Carlisle decision allows the ship’s doctor to commit negligent acts without the cruise lines being liable for that conduct. Carlisle majority held that the doctor themselves are responsible for their own negligence, however, failing to recognize that the majority of the time the doctors are foreign citizens without malpractice insurance and/or sufficient coverage of any kind to compensate injured or deceased passengers for their medical negligence. Members of the Maritime Bar and the Florida Admiralty Trial Lawyers are exploring current cases to challenge this bad law, however, we still believe there are ways cruise lines as well as their physicians and nursing staff can be held liable for medical negligence on board cruise ships. Please contact us and we will be happy to discuss and protect your rights if you are injured by the negligence of a ship’s doctor, nurse, or infirmary staff. The ship is still liable for its own conduct in failing to hire qualified competent physicians, in failing to equip the infirmary with proper medication and medical equipment, and for its own independent torts. We are currently exploring an interesting case where we believe one of the major cruise lines failed to have adequate pain killers available during an extremely painful injury suffered by a client due to either expired or tampered medication, which was allowed to be utilized in the infirmary either through negligent or intentional conduct of the crew and the ship’s owner/operator. FIVE. AS SOON AS YOU RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES OR YOUR HOME CONTACT THE LAW OFFICES OF GLENN J HOLZBERG, (305) 668-6410 OR CONTACT US THROUGH ANY OF OUR WEBSITES: www.HolzbergLegal.com, http://www.flcruiseinjury.com/, www.HurtOnACruise.com; OR E-MAIL US AT: gholzbrg@bellsouth.net. SIX. JONES ACT CASES. Claims on behalf of injured crew members and seamen. We regularly provide representation to injured and deceased seamen and their families who are employed aboard any cruise ships as Jones Act seamen. The Jones Act is contained in 46 United States Code §688 and is designed to protect seamen who work on ships and vessels in navigable waters, who suffers personal injury in the course of employment to maintain an action for damages against the boat owner or operator. Since this is an extensive body of law hundreds of years old, it is important that each individual case is evaluated by an experienced maritime and admiralty lawyer for its particular facts. Navigable waters may include intercoastal waterways, lakes and rivers many miles inland so long as they ultimately connect to water not totally landlocked, such as sea or ocean. For example, Lake Okeechobee is a navigable waterway as are the Great Lakes. The Jones Act allows broad remedies to seamen including damages for the negligence of the employer, maintenance and cure (maintenance are the expenses paid to the seaman for his/her costs of boarding and lodging while ashore, and cure is appropriate medical care until the seaman reasonable achieves maximum medical cure.) Additionally, while the seaman is receiving maintenance and cure benefits, the ship owner is obligated to pay wages through the termination of the voyage, usually defined by the contract between the crew member and the ship owner/operator. The ship’s owner is also obligated to the seaman for a remedy known as seaworthiness. This is critical in cases where the ship is found to be unseaworthy including defective or improper equipment or crew (critical in attack and abuse cases by other crew members) since the ship owner is strictly liable for unseaworthy vessel or crew and therefore provides the seaman with a more relaxed burden of proof in unseaworthiness cases. Depending upon which carrier or ship owner you are employed by, both State and Federal Courts have jurisdiction in these cases. If you believe that you have a case as a crew member it is important that you seek representation immediately since there are important statute of limitations for Jones Act claims – three years from the time you knew or reasonable should have known you were injured as a result of a negligence or not provided with appropriate medical care and treatment. If you wish to schedule a personal telephone conference and a face to face interview with Glenn J. Holzberg, please call, e-mail, or contact us through our website.
Passenger Injuries and Wrongful Death
TWO. TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS. The axiom – a picture tells a thousand words – is never more important than the personal injury setting. Often since the vessel is controlled solely and exclusively by the cruise ship company we are never able to take the same pictures that you would be able to take while you are at sea and before you leave the vessel for the last time. The foreign substance, dangerous condition, object or individual who may have caused you harm is on the ship during the cruise, and unless they leave at a port (which is rare though could happen in the case of a felony such as a sexual assault or attack), this evidence must be preserved as close in time to the incident as possible. For example, in slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall cases we often represent clients who fall as a result of a foreign transitory substance – in other words oil, grease, suntan lotion, food, beverage, ice cream, waxy buildup or polish on a marble or tile floor, jagged tile, carpeting, surface between carpeting and tile interface raised, raised threshold to lounge or theatre intended to provide a locking mechanism for double door closures. All and many of these dangerous conditions are a probable or likely cause of your injury, however, without pictures to show the jury, the Court, the insurance adjuster, the loss prevention manager and opposing lawyer who will be hired all on behalf of the cruise line, you will have no proof of what caused you to fall. Without this proof it is our experience that the cruise lines will take the position that you did not fall, that there was nothing to cause you to fall, and that this was simply your own fault. PICTURES ARE AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY. Protect yourself and your case by being smart and taking pictures. Don’t forget pictures of bruises, lacerations, scrapes, cuts, tears, clothing which may contain foreign substance.
