A cruise line could be held liable for a given accident, if the victim had proof that the ship’s operator knew, or should have known about the unsafe condition on the vessel.
A different law applies to ships on non-navigable waters.
The ship’s staff has a duty of care towards the passengers. It must ensure the maintenance of safe transportation. Maintenance of safe transportation would involve utilization of video cameras, background checks, and good lighting.
It must protect every passenger from any harmful acts. There are provisions in the ship’s contract with each passenger have been printed on the same passenger’s ticket.
Personal injury lawyer in Arcadia knows that an injured passenger has only a limited amount of time for brining any lawsuit against the responsible vessel. The provisions also limit the number of locations where an injured passenger could file a lawsuit against the cruising company.
On any vessel, there are certain circumstances that could place the ship at-fault for a passenger’s act of falling overboard.
If the fall had resulted from unsafe conditions that were known to operator and staff, then the ship could be blamed for the fall overboard.
—Did the passenger fall overboard after drinking at the ship’s bar?
—Had the passenger been the target of a violent action from a crew member?
—Had the ship’s defective handrails not been fixed?
—Had the captain failed to warn passengers about the approach of fought waters?
—Had designated staff not been trained to carry out an effective rescue operation?
An attempted suicide would not present the sorts of conditions that would suggest that the cruising vessel should be blamed for a specific overboard incident.
Would any passenger that had come down with Covid, while on a cruise have grounds for suing the cruising company?
In the earliest days of the pandemic, a cruise ship would not have known about the potential dangers posed by passengers from specific countries. For that reason, it would have been difficult for those early passengers to sue the cruise line.
Today, however, cruise ships know more about the virus and its transmission. So, a smart cruise line should take added precautions, in order to keep each of its vessels free of the world’s newest respiratory virus. The appearance of new viruses should signal the need for new on-board policies, both on land and on the water.
In other words, as various countries start to require the testing of those that are coming from a country with a high death rate from Covid, cruise lines should institute a similar policy. Any passengers that might come down with that respiratory virus could hold their chosen cruise line liable for a failure to undertake the proper safety measure.
