Jie Luo, a 21-year-old Colorado State student went missing March 14 after he and four others decided to go swimming jumping off a chartered yacht. Luo and the four other swimmers were part of a group of 16 college students sailing on a charter boat in the Pass-A-Grille channel near the Gulf of Mexico while on spring break. Due to a strong current and strong winds, Luo could not get back on the boat and the boat’s first mate, Andrew Dillman, 27-years-old, jumped in the water attempting to rescue Luo while the charter captain assisted the four other swimmers.
This case concerns a passenger who participated in a seven-day cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas cruise ship. The passenger booked a shore excursion through Royal Caribbean to Dunn’s River Falls while the ship called on Jamaica. The local guide was employed by the excursion company told the passengers to hold hands while ascending the falls. Unfortunately, the passenger slipped and fell when a girl whose hand he was holding slipped. The fall resulted in the passenger fracturing his leg and sustaining other injuries.
The major cruise lines insert a provision into their crewmember employment contracts requiring any dispute between them and their seamen employees, including personal injury claims, to resolved at arbitration. Often times these employment contracts require the arbitration to occur outside the United States and to apply foreign law. This means that if a crewmember is injured on the job, he or she will have to bring an arbitration claim in a myriad of foreign locations, but not in the United States and not under United States law. The reason cruise lines are forcing their crewmembers to foreign arbitration is because it is more likely that the arbitrators, who are compensated by the cruise lines, will favor the cruise lines position and will be reluctant to give the injured seamen high money awards.
A Southern District of Florida judge has recently allowed a case concerning the death of a Carnival Cruise passenger to proceed to the jury. This case involves couple who were passengers onboard the Carnival Dream. The cruise was a round trip Mexican voyage leaving from and returning to New Orleans, Louisiana. On the day in question, the couple were served 22 alcoholic beverages by the cruise line over the course of twelve hours. Most of the drinks were Long Island Iced Teas which contained high amounts of alcohol. The couple attended dinner where the husband was inebriated but did not slur his words or stumble. After dinner the couple went to the ship’s casino. At the casino bar, the husband fell off the bar stool. About an hour after the fall in the casino bar, the couple bought a final round of drinks. The decision was made to go to the ship’s nightclub. The wife went into the club while the husband stayed behind to finish a cigarette. He never arrived at the club. He, instead, went back to the stateroom. At about 1:00 a.m., the husband fell off the cabin’s balcony onto a deck below. He died from his injuries.
Authorities are reporting a 74-year-old passenger on-board MSC Divina is missing and presumed overboard. The man’s disappearance comes just days after a 22-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman went overboard the Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas and the Queen Mary 2, respectively.
