With the sun warming your skin, the sea breeze tussling your hair and a full buffet waiting for you at lunchtime, the possibility that something may go awry seems impossible. For many, cruise vacations go off without a hitch. Others, however, are not so lucky.
When it comes to the unlucky ones, Leesfield & Partners attorneys are ready to help pick up the pieces to guide injured clients through the legal process. With over four decades of experience navigating devastating cruise passenger and crew member injury cases, the firm has been recognized as a leader in its field with record verdicts in the state and nationally for injured clients.
With its landmark office in the heart of Miami, about a 30-minute drive from PortMiami, also known as the “cruise capital of the world,” Leesfield & Partners attorneys have had thousands of passenger injury and wrongful death cases come across their desks. Attorneys with the firm have handled cases of medical malpractice at the hands of inept cruise line doctors, devastating cases of wrongful death during shore excursions, and negligent security cases in which passengers and or crewmembers have become the victims of violent crime while on board these ships.
Medical Malpractice
When it comes to medical malpractice cases against cruise lines, Leesfield & Partners attorneys have handled some of the most shocking cases imaginable including the multiple amputations of a 9-month-old baby from the U.K., failure to evacuate patients in distress resulting in their deaths, and the misdiagnosis of a 16-year-old having a stroke. Medical teams on cruise ships display time and time again their lack of training to the detriment of the patients trusted to be in their care.
One such instance of this can be seen in that of a crewmember represented by Leesfield & Partners who went to a cruise doctor reporting symptoms of nausea. To remedy this, the man’s doctor ordered the maximum allowable dose of 25 mg of Promethazine to be administered through the man’s IV instead of the recommended method of slowly injecting the medication deep into the muscle over two minutes. The medication had a black box warning label that displayed the increased risk for gangrene if not administered properly. The man was in immediate agony following the rapid injection into his IV and thus began an hours-long ordeal. The medical staff taking care of him aboard the ship began searching online to determine what they should do, never considering medical evacuation for the man. About 17 hours after his first symptoms, the man was able to seek medical attention once the ship had docked in Port Canaveral and it was determined from his blackened fingers and severely swollen arm that he would need a fasciotomy. Days later, his arm was amputated.
Attorneys with the firm secured a $3,337,500 arbitration award for the man in that case.
In the case of the 9-month-old baby, Leesfield & Partners attorneys were able to secure a multi-million dollar award for the family despite the application of the Athens Convention. The 1974 Athens Convention is a Statute that creates a limited liability when it comes to claims brought by injured passengers against cruise line companies. This limitation caps the financial responsibility of these companies at $540,000, per passenger. If a cruise line touches a U.S. port, however, they are ineligible to benefit from this cap under 46 U.S.C § 30509(a). Because the baby and her family were traveling from the U.K., their cruise line, and many others like it, employed the use of separate contracts for people coming from countries other than the United States. Due to this, the family was forced to file their lawsuit in the United Kingdom, paving the way for the Athens Convention to be applied and place a cap on damages. Despite these hindrances, Leesfield & Partners attorneys were able to secure a $5.5 million award for the family.
When it comes to litigating these types of cases against cruise lines, there are several factors to consider. The “Barbetta Rule” was a rule recognized by courts until 2014 that held cruise lines mostly exempt from the negligence of cruise line doctors and medical staff. This was changed with Franza v Royal Caribbean which held that an onboard medical staff should not be considered as independent contractors “simply because that is what the cruise line calls them.” It went against the arguments made in Barbetta and stated they did not justify the immunity outlined in all claims of medical malpractice. The overturning of this long-held precedent paved the way for cruise passengers’ recourse for justice against cruise lines and insufficiently trained medical staff who they justifiably relied upon to provide medical care while on board.
Shore Excursions
The family vacation of a mother and daughter on a cruise ship ended tragically after a parasailing excursion. The two purchased a shore excursion on board the cruise ship that would take place once the boat was docked at a scheduled stop. Once the pair was up in the sky, a rope snapped due to heavy winds, leaving the mother and daughter to fall back into the water rapidly. The mother was killed in the incident and the daughter sustained traumatic injuries. The cruise line argued that the company that took the mother and daughter on the excursion was an independent contractor even though it was purchased on the ship. The family was represented by Leesfield & Partners and attorneys secured a $7.5 million award in that case.
Another case handled by the firm involves a young man traveling with his parents in Tortola, an Island in the British Virgin Islands, when the excursion bus they were traveling on rolled over and fell off a cliff. The young man was killed in the crash and attorneys with the firm discovered that the bus carrying the family to their destination was inadequately maintained and improperly inspected.
People are attracted to cruise ships for a myriad of reasons but one apparent draw is that they are a “one-stop shop.” Passengers can island-hop or visit several different countries, all without having to repack their bags until it is time to go home. Most ships offer an incredible list of things to do on board as well as excursions that can be purchased at the time of booking. Purchasing a shore excursion on board results in the cruise line getting a cut of every one sold. In that way, cruise lines cannot escape liability when tragedies such as these occur.
When such accidents take place, injured cruise passengers and their families must act quickly. Federal maritime law stipulates that passengers injured on cruise ships that touch U.S. ports must file a claim within six months and file a lawsuit within one year of the date of the incident. Depending on the circumstances of a claim, a court may choose not to enforce these limitations. Most cruise lines, however, require written claims to be filed within days instead of months following the incident.
Negligent Security
No one feels they should have to worry about crime while on vacation, especially while staying on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. Though far removed from big cities and the constant everyday worries of robberies, assaults and other violent crimes, cruise ships are not places where passengers become immune to these happenings. Data collected by the FBI on reported crimes showed that there were 131 sex crimes on ships coming in and out of the United States in 2023. These reported crimes included 52 sexual assaults and 79 reported rapes. Numbers of reported incidents of this nature collected in 2022 did not differentiate between sexual assault and rape. There were 87 alleged incidents reported for that year.
In numbers from the U.S. Department of Transportation for 2024, there have been at least eight reported incidents of assault with serious bodily injury, 16 reported incidents of sexual assault and 16 rapes were reported to the agency. From 2010 to 2022, more than 500 sexual assaults were reported on 13 major cruise lines.
Leesfield & Partners attorneys have handled numerous cases of negligent security on cruise ships including the case of a Canadian woman who was raped by a crewmember who accessed her room via an employee keycard. The firm was able to recover a multi-million dollar award for the woman.
In an article published in the Daily Business Review in March, Leesfield & Partners Founder and Managing Partner, Ira Leesfield, called ships “floating cities” full of many of the same hazards that people may find on land.
Just months later in the same publication, Mr. Leesfield was asked for his expertise in handling cases such as these. When asked to discuss the perceived upward tick in sexual assaults aboard cruise ships, Mr. Leesfield pointed out that the increase could be attributed to the surge in passengers. This number was estimated to be 27.6 million worldwide in 2024 following a record-setting year in Port Miami that saw the passage of 7,299,294 cruise passengers. Despite the growth, Mr. Leesfield said “the enforcement and policing is down.”
“So it’s a perfect storm,” he said. “And I think this will continue until the cruise lines get a program together.”