Ketchikan, Alaska – Celebrity Millennium Heads to Premature Dry Dock Due to Persistent Propulsion Problems
Cruise slip and fall law is quite complex. The personal injury lawyers at Brais Law Firm have vast experiences litigating lawsuits against major cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Carnival, NCL and Disney. It is very important if you are hurt aboard a cruise ship to make a record of your accident and preserve evidence. Performance of these tasks will add significant benefits to your case.
The favorite defense of every cruise line is that it did not have notice of the hazardous condition and therefore should not be liable for the injury sustained on their cruise ship. In nearly every case, the “notice defense” is raised. Maritime law holds a ship owner is not an “insurer of safety” and that to be held liable the cruise line must have known of the hazard or that the hazards existed for a significant amount of time that a reasonable prudent ship owner would have discovered the hazard. The weird quark in the law is that the injured passenger is obligated to prove that the cruise line knew or should have known of the hazard instead of the cruise line being required to prove that it did not know nor could have known of the condition. Since cruise lines control nearly all of the evidence such as work orders, complaint notices and the employees who work in the area, it is often very difficult for passengers to prove notice.
All major cruise lines require injured passengers to file lawsuits in certain courts. Royal Caribbean, for the most part, requires legal claims to be brought in the Federal court located in Miami, Florida. The reason for the “Federal Forum Selection” is because cruise lines think the Federal Court system will yield smaller plaintiff awards. Royal Caribbean recently started to include English forum selection clauses in tickets purchased in the United Kingdom even though the cruise departs from Florida. Such an English forum selection clause was the subject of the dispute between Royal Caribbean and Brais Law Firm’s client.
The cruise injury lawyers of Brais Law Firm recently obtained sanctions against Celebrity Cruises for “losing” critical CCTV surveillance video depicting their client’s trip and fall accident on board the cruise ship Century. CCTV video cameras are prevalent aboard cruise ships. In fact, modern cruise liners have hundreds of cameras recording the actions of the passengers and crew. Often times, however, when the video is requested for litigation, the cruise lines claim no video exists or it was recorded over. Such was the situation in the instant case.
