With litigation mounting against cruise lines for alleged failure to warn against the coronavirus, plaintiffs could face a hard-fought battle, a maritime law expert says.
A proposed class action, filed in the Northern District of California April 8 against Princess Cruise Lines, parent company Carnival Corp., and Fairline Shipping International Ltd. (the vessel’s owner), alleges 2,000 passengers were exposed to COVID-19 due to negligence.
But cases against cruise lines usually end up settling for far lesser amounts than what the plaintiffs seek, professor Martin Davies, director of the Tulane Maritime Law Center, told the Northern California Record.
That’s due in part to the federal 1851 Limitation of Liability Act, which sets the amount that can be recovered to the value of the vessel. The Titanic owners invoked it to limit payouts after that 1912 disaster; the law more recently was used in the Deepwater Horizon case, and last September, when 34 people died off the California coast on the vessel Conception.
In the Conception case, the owners took just a few days to file for limited liability, Davies said, but cruise lines may wait longer to gauge public perception.
“If they do file limitation, it will be trying to corral all the lawsuits into one place under concursus in addition to limiting their liability,” Davies said.
“It’s always very unpopular when it happens,” he added. “Cruise lines may hold off a few months until the dust settles a little bit, it’s not a very good look to limit your liability.”
Regarding the April 8 class action filed on behalf of passengers, Mary Alexander, who is co-counsel with Lieff Cabraser, said in an email to the Record, “Princess cruise put profit before people when the ship sailed knowing that the ship was infected from the previous voyage. Princess knew that someone from that cruise died the day before it embarked. They should have taken the ship out of commission. Instead, they knowingly and recklessly exposed passengers to disease and many were sickened. Passengers suffered incarceration on the ship and in quarantine afterward. Princess, and Carnival who operates it, have a corporate culture of ignoring public health endangering passengers and the public.”
In a statement emailed to the Record, the cruise line said, “Princess Cruises has been sensitive to the difficulties the COVID-19 outbreak has caused to our guests and crew. Our response throughout this process has focused on the well-being of our guests and crew within the parameters dictated to us by the government agencies involved and the evolving medical understanding of this new illness. We do not comment on any pending litigation.”
A class action case also was filed on behalf of crew members against Celebrity Cruises. Parent company Royal Caribbean did not respond to a request for comment.
In cases involving crew members, the U.S. Supreme Court has held those must be handled through arbitration, not litigation, when enforceable arbitration clauses are in the crew contracts, Davies said.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control on April 9 announced extension of a “No Sail” order for all cruise ships.
In a statement emailed to the Record, a spokesperson for the industry trade group, Cruise Lines International Association, said, “The cruise industry responded to this unprecedented crisis based on the information that was available when it was available and always under the guidance of prevailing health authorities.
“We know now that, tragically, this pandemic affects every setting where people come together to socialize and enjoy shared experiences, which includes cruise ships but it also includes restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, and the like. We will use this time during the temporary suspension of operations to review and enhance our protocols to determine ways we can go even further in our efforts to protect the health of passengers, crew, and the destinations we visit.”
Even if a loved one dies on a cruise, the 1920 Death on the High Seas Act makes it difficult for plaintiffs to prevail.
“It’s very restrictive about what can be recovered,” Davies said.
The law was passed to provide for the widows and families of sailors, but precludes families of cruise ship passengers from collecting for pain and suffering.
“It [litigation] will take a long time,” Davies said. “The cruise line has an obligation to take reasonable care. It could come down to what they could have done in light of what was known or understood at the time. Things were changing very quickly. The questions for the court may be what the cruise lines should have realized; what should they have done to prevent the spread of virus? And you have to know how it spreads, and it seems at the moment that’s not particularly clear.”
“The medical and scientific aspects are going to be complicated because so much is evolving; that evidence may not be evident for years,” Davies added.