In addition to allowing boat owners to limit their liability, the law provides various strategic advantages to boat owners. The first advantage is boat owners can initiate the litigation. This is the exact opposite of a traditional litigation where the victim starts legal proceedings. By being allowed to initiate proceedings, boat owners can set the tempo and even scare victims into not bringing a claim. In addition, if the victims had already brought a lawsuit in the local state court, the statute allows the boat owners to stay those proceedings in favor of a Federal Judge deciding the case. Part and parcel of staying the state court action, the victims loses the right of having a jury decide the case.
It seems every holiday weekend someone has lost their life in a boat crash on Biscayne Bay. Ernesto Hernandez was killed in May when a boat operated by DJ Laz backed over him on Nixon Beach in Key Biscayne. On Memorial Day Weekend, Giovanna Patricia Santos was killed when the boat on which she was a passenger collided with an anchored boat near Elliot Key. Now this past 4th of July weekend, four people died and several other injured when three boats collided near Dinner Key in Coconut Grove.
A Florida snorkeler was run over and killed in Jupiter Inlet. Andrew Harris and Nicole Kapfer were snorkeling on June 8th when two motor boats entered the Jupiter Inlet. The lead boat was able to avoid the snorkelers. Unfortunately, the second boat did not. Both boats stopped to render assistance after the accident. Harris, a 27-year-old graduate of Florida State University, was air lifted to St. Mary’s Medical Center where he later died from his injuries. Kapfer luckily only sustained minor injuries.
Our law firm receives many calls from vacationers who were injured after slipping and falling aboard the Carnival Paradise. Currently home ported in Tampa, Florida, the Carnival Paradise is a 17-year-old cruise ship – a veritable dinosaur in this day-in-age where cruise lines pump out new ships each year. The exterior decks are mostly made of wood. It seems water tends to pool in certain areas after rain or washing causing the unsuspecting passenger to hydroplane when walking across the deck. This often times results in slip and fall injuries.
Jamaican news outlets are reporting two men were arrested for raping a fellow passenger aboard the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas. The rape is reportedly to have occurred approximately 50 miles outside Jamaican waters on Thursday morning (5/29) while the cruise ship was approaching Falmouth. The men (both Americans) were supposedly partying with the victim the night before. The Navigator of the Seas conducts weekly voyages to the western Caribbean from Galveston, Texas.
