USA Today - 03.04.2020

4D ❚ FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2020 ❚ USA TODAY NEWS

TRAVEL

ing two passengers from the Ruby
Princess in Australia, which saw hun-
dreds of COVID-19 cases.
Her parents did not get sick, but Cha-
lik found a clause in Princess’ tickets
that allowed claims to be filed in cases of
immediate danger. The company was
put on notice a few weeks before her
parents’ cruise, she said, by the more
than 700 people infected on the Dia-
mond Princess, nine of whom have died.
She’s filed nine cases against
Princess Cruises on behalf of Grand
Princess, each seeking $1 million in
damages. The lawsuits allege that
Princess Cruises was grossly negligent
for sailing when it knew the ship had
been infected by the previous passen-
ger. Since then, 103 passengers from the
voyage in March have tested positive,
and two have died.
In a statement, Princess Cruise Lines
said it does not comment on pending lit-
igation but “has been sensitive to the
difficulties the COVID-19 outbreak has
caused to our guests and crew.”
“Our response throughout this proc-
ess has focused on the well-being of our
guests and crew within the parameters
dictated to us by the government agen-
cies involved and the evolving medical
understanding of this new illness,” the
statement said.
The industry’s slow response to ini-
tial warnings facilitated the early global
spread of the COVID-19 virus. The
Cruise Lines International Association,
the industry’s largest trade group, wait-
ed more than a month to suspend cruise
travel after confirmed cases appeared
on the Diamond Princess in Japan.
Cruise passengers remain in peril:
According to Securities and Exchange
Commission filings, approximately
6,000 Carnival passengers were still
aboard the company’s cruise ships
Monday. Four elderly passengers on
Holland America’s MS Zaandam died
last week, though the causes of death
have not been disclosed. As of Wednes-
day, nine people on that ship had tested
positive for COVID-19, and more than
200 passengers and crew members re-
ported flu-like symptoms.
Even in cases of utter meltdown, ex-
perts said, cruise lines are protected by
a shield of immunity that can be difficult
for plaintiffs to break through.
They pointed to the ill-fated Carnival
Triumph, which lost power and plumb-
ing in the Gulf of Mexico in 2013, leaving
passengers stewing in human feces for
several days. Most lawsuits went no-
where, attorneys said, and the ones that
did resulted in small financial awards.
Because most cruise lines and their
ships are registered outside the USA,
they do not have to comply with many
domestic safety regulations. The few
U.S. regulations they do have to follow –
including inspections administered by
the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention if they stop at U.S. ports
while sailing internationally – mask
how frequently ships are cited for health
and sanitation violations, according to a
USA TODAY investigation.
That undercuts the normal range of
incentives for companies to improve
conditions, experts said.
“It’s basically lawless; they can basi-
cally conduct themselves without being
held accountable,” said Spencer Aron-
feld, an attorney who specializes in
cruise ship litigation. “They don’t have
to comply with building codes. They
don’t have to comply with the ADA

(Americans with Disabilities Act): They

can make the steps any way they want,

they can make the handrails any way

they want. They don’t have to have CT

scans or MRIs on the ships.”

The list goes on and on, Aronfeld

said, of things cruise lines “would never

get away with if they had a hotel in Mi-

ami or Las Vegas.”

‘Cruise line tickets

are legal works of art’

Like many industries, cruise lines are

not insurers of passenger safety –

meaning they’re not 100% responsible

for keeping passengers in good health.

They do have a duty to take reasonable

steps to keep their passengers from

harm.

Michael Karcher, a maritime lawyer

and professor of admiralty at the Uni-

versity of Miami Law School, said the le-

gal benchmark for cruise ships is “rea-

sonable care under the circumstances.”

What is reasonable “may depend on

where you are going, who are the pas-

sengers, what kind of things you are en-

countering,” Karcher said. “ ‘Under the

circumstances’ leaves a lot of room for

factual questions on both sides.”

One clear cut example is a slip-and-

fall case in which the passenger can

prove that a design flaw on the ship or a

wet, unmarked surface left by a crew

member directly led to their injury.

Big cruise lines such as Carnival, the

owner of Princess Cruises and more

than half of the cruise market share,

limit those circumstances and what is

reasonable before passengers board.

Buried in the terms of service in most

passengers’ tickets are limitations on

the cruise line’s liability for everything

from the actions of third-party contrac-

tors – such as masseuses, nail techni-

cians, excursion companies, even on-

board doctors – to unforeseen delays.

The Grand Princess was held off the

coast of California for five days waiting

for authorities to allow it to dock on its

return from what was supposed to have

been a round trip from San Francisco to

Hawaii. After docking in Oakland, it

took a week to get everyone off the ship.

Martin Davies, director of the Mari-

time Law Center at Tulane University

said he would be “very surprised” if the

cruise lines “were liable for any delay ...

for being held offshore” because of

terms of service in passengers’ tickets.

“The cruise line tickets are legal

works of art,” Davies said.

Included in the ticket contract of

most cruise lines, including Princess

Cruise Lines, is a waiver of class-action

lawsuits.

Emotional distress is not

considered an injury

Deep in Carnival’s ticket contract,

the company says it is not liable for

damages for emotional distress or men-

tal suffering. The only exception is when

those damages were caused by Carni-

val’s negligence and resulted in a pas-

senger “sustaining actual physical inju-

ry, or having been at risk of actual phys-

ical injury.”

Attorneys said Princess Cruise Lines

may have breached its duty of care for

passengers on the Grand Princess and

Diamond Princess.

An investigation by USA TODAY

found that Princess Cruise Lines had a

problem with health long before the cor-

onavirus outbreaks. Nearly 5,000 peo-

ple aboard Princess ships in the past

decade have suffered from bouts of

vomiting, diarrhea – or both – in num-

bers widespread enough that govern-

ment health officials issued alerts on 26

outbreaks.

Holding the company liable, espe-

cially for passengers who did not con-

tract the virus, may be a Sisyphean task.

Aronfeld blames maritime law, which

allows only for cases involving physical

injuries, saying they “really are de-

signed to protect the coffers of the

cruise line at the expense of injured pas-

sengers.”

That restriction is codified in U.S.

Code 46, called the Shipping Act.

“Just because you see a lot of people

getting sick on board and you’re freaked

out by that, it doesn’t necessarily mean

you can sue for mental anguish or pain

and suffering,” said John Hickey, a mari-

time trial attorney in Miami.

Hickey said his firm decided not to

take such cases. Instead, they are ex-

ploring the case of a 70-year-old woman

who is in a hospital and faces perma-

nent lung damage from pneumonia

Hickey said was caused by the corona-

virus she contracted onboard.

“That is actual and permanent and

severe injury,” Hickey said.

Aronfeld has fielded calls from Grand

Princess passengers, some while they

were still quarantined onboard. He de-

clined to take them on.

Carnival denies the allegations of

negligence, saying in a statement that at

the time of the sailing of the Grand

Princess, “the only cruise ship with

guests who had tested positive for coro-

navirus was the Diamond Princess in

Japan (that was connected to a passen-

ger from Hong Kong who tested positive

several days later after disembarking

from the ship).”

“At the time, the outbreak was gener-

ally believed to be secluded to China,

and later, parts of Asia. There was no

WHO restriction on global travel other

than China,” the statement said.

Aronfeld sees similarities to another

high-profile case that was among the

largest and most challenging of his ca-

reer: the Carnival Triumph disaster.

In 2013, a fire caused power and

plumbing outages as the Triumph re-

turned to Galveston, Texas, from Cozu-

mel, Mexico. Its route back to the USA

via tow took nearly a week. Passengers

reported raw sewage left in hazmat bags

in hallways and leaking into their rooms

from backed-up pipes, earning the Tri-

umph the nickname “poop cruise.”

Despite evidence of Carnival’s negli-

gence, including documents indicating

the crew knew of generator fire hazards

across the fleet before it set sail, Aron-

feld said the only clients who saw any

money were those who suffered from

injuries such as dehydration or a fall due

to the blackout onboard. Most were

small rewards.

Emotional injury claims did not make

the cut, and Aronfeld envisions the

same playing out for Princess cruise

passengers.

“I can just give you an example of

how draconian that law is: We saw a

case where a mother had a small child

drown in a pool on Royal Caribbean,” he

said. “As they were trying to resuscitate,

they were unsuccessful, and the child

died.”

According to court records, the

mother sued for emotional distress,

among other things, over the traumatic

experience of watching her son die. The

court ruled in favor of Royal Caribbean,

dismissing the claim because she did

not sustain an injury and the cruise

line’s conduct did not rise “to the level of

outrageousness” required by the law.

“If that’s not enough,” Aronfeld said,

“I don’t how being confined to a luxury

cabin on a Princess trip is going to be

enough to survive a motion to dismiss.”

Death on the High Seas

One of the most controversial pieces

of maritime law is the Death on the High

Seas Act. Passed in 1920, the law initia-

lly was intended to prevent seafarers’

wives from becoming destitute if their

husbands died on the water. The law

covers deaths due to negligence or

wrongful acts occurring 12 miles off the

coast of the USA.

The rub, experts said, is it covers only

“pecuniary loss,” meaning financial loss

such as wages, medical and funeral

costs. If the person who dies is a retiree,

a child, or unemployed, lawsuits filed by

their survivors would be extremely lim-

ited.

“So grandma and grandpa go on this

cruise and they get sick and they both

die at sea,” said New Orleans attorney

and maritime law expert Paul Sterbcow.

“Their claim against the boat – to the ex-

tent to which they have one for failure to

take reasonable care – is grounded in

the Death of the High Seas Act, and the

kids recover funeral and burial ex-

penses, and that’s it.”

This may come into play for passen-

gers on the Zaandam and sister ship MS

Rotterdam, which were turned away

from docking in several counties. Four

passengers have died.

Contributing: Morgan Hines, David

Oliver, Letitia Stein and Marco della Ca-

va

Cruise lines

Continued from Page 1D

A passenger on the Carnival Triumph in 2013. JOHN DAVID MERCER/AP

Holland America has reached a deal
with authorities that will allow the
cruise line to dock two of its ships, the
MS Zaandam and MS Rotterdam, at Port
Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
“It’s my understanding that the uni-
fied command has now reached an
agreement with Broward County to al-
low the folks (on board) to disembark,”
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis
told USA TODAY on Thursday. “We were
made privy of the details yesterday, and
we’re hopeful that this new protocol
that they’ve agreed to will sufficiently
insulate our people in Fort Lauderdale
at risk of (contracting) the disease.”
Four elderly passengers on the Zaan-

dam died. Two of the four deaths on

board the Zaandam have been blamed

on COVID-19, and nine people have test-

ed positive, the cruise line said.

Between the Zaandam and Rotter-

dam a total of 107 passengers and 143

crew members have presented flu-like

symptoms since March 22, according to

a Holland America statement provided

by spokesperson Sally Andrews. Symp-

toms of the flu and COVID-19 are similar.

Passengers who passed a health

screening were transferred to the Rot-

terdam last weekend. The passengers

on board both ships will disembark in

stages based on whether they have

symptoms of the illness and the severity

of them, Trantalis explained.

Trantalis also announced the agree-

ment on social media, and shared some

of his thoughts on the deal.

Officials had initially been apprehen-

sive about the possibility of the ships

docking in Fort Lauderdale given the

risk that it could pose to the community

and the potential to spread coronavirus

due to the confirmed coronavirus cases

on board the MS Zaandam.

“We’re assuming people who get sick

have COVID,” William Burke, chief mari-

time officer of Carnival Corp., which

owns Holland America Line, said Tues-

day during a Broward County Commis-

sion meeting, though only nine had test-

ed positive at the time.

Trantalis said that regulations in the

agreement allowing the ships to dock

will provide “strong safeguards” to the

community.

“I met yesterday with the president of

Holland America to share these con-

cerns,” Trantalis wrote. “Holland Amer-

ica agreed to a strict set set of protocols

if the county decided to allow the ships

to dock.”

In a Thursday statement, Holland

America expressed relief that a deal has

finally been struck, ending the ships’ sa-

ga, which began in mid-March when

Chile denied the MS Zaandam permis-

sion to end the cruise there.

The ships are carrying 311 Americans

and 52 Florida residents.

Contributing: Jayme Deerwester,

USA TODAY; The Associated Press

Holland America cruise ships still in limbo

Deal made to allow 2 of

them to dock in Florida

Morgan Hines
USA TODAY

Passengers are seen onboard Holland

America’s cruise ship Zaandam on

March 27. LUIS ACOSTA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES