Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog
A video showcasing a passenger testing out a new slide advertised as the “quickest way” to travel eight floors on a cruise ship has gone viral.
The video, which has over 460,000 likes, thousands of comments and has been shared nearly 60,000 times, shows a passenger getting inside a tube-like slide and securing himself in a sack. Once the passenger was loaded up, the tube door closed, and the floor vanished from underneath him.
The man can be heard yelling all the way down, his laughter echoing through the tube. The camera then pans to the side of the ship where the slide curves off the edge, suspended over the pool deck for a moment of adrenaline-spiking danger.
While many joked about the good-natured fun, some viewers commented about their reservations where safety was concerned.
One dubious commenter said they planned on “taking the stairs for sure.”
“They have you pre-load the body bag,” a different commenter said. “How nice of you.”
“The laughing to mask the fear,” said another.
While twisting slides, wave-simulators and ziplines are nothing new to modern day cruise ships, they can still present hazards for passengers. When accidents happen, either through allowing the area around these activities to fall into disarray or from negligent supervision, these cruise ships must be equipped with medical staff who can address the resulting injuries. Leesfield & Partners has learned that most times, they are not.
Leesfield & Partners
Leesfield & Partners is a personal injury law firm with nearly five decades of experience handling motor vehicle crash cases, medical malpractice, negligent security and premises liability cases. With a homebase in Miami, Florida, a city with the world’s largest cruise port, Leesfield & Partners has had the opportunity to represent countless victims of cruise ship negligence.
In that time, the firm has secured multiple record settlements and verdicts for injured clients and their grieving families. The firm has handled premises liability and negligent security cases on cruise ships, medical malpractice cases involving inadequate cruise doctors, and shore excursion injury cases. Over the years, Leesfield & Partners has developed expansive cruise ship litigation experience, building a reputation as some of the most aggressive and indefatigable attorneys available, known for their commitment to their clients. Attorneys with the firm will pursue the best possible outcome for all clients.
Previous Medical Malpractice Cases
Through the firm’s experience, our attorneys have found that the medical staff aboard cruise ships are oftentimes not licensed in the United States, meaning their training and credentials are not up to par with U.S. standards. In the past, this has resulted in disaster for passengers who are experiencing a medical emergency either via misdiagnosis or bad judgement with catastrophic consequences.
In some instances, the medical staff or cruise ship officials have delayed or outright refused to evacuate passengers in a medical crisis. This delay or refusal to evacuate can be attributed to the cost of evacuating and scheduling conflicts with the ship’s voyage.
In a previous Leesfield & Partners case in which a woman was denied an evacuation amid a medical emergency, the firm secured a $4 million award for her injuries. The woman, 65, was having a stroke while aboard the ship.
In another stroke case, this time involving a 16-year-old passenger, cruise doctors refused to evacuate the teen. When defending their choice, the doctors told their patient that “teenagers don’t have strokes.”
Leesfield & Partners settled the case for $3 million.
Shore Excursion Injuries and Premises Liability Cases
As common carriers, cruise ships have a non-delegable duty to ensure the safety of those on board. This means that cruise lines have a greater responsibility and are held to a higher standard of care where passenger safety is concerned. It is the cruise line’s duty to take reasonable precautions to ensure the safety and well-being of those on board, meaning they must ensure that the ship is free of hazards, like a loose bolt that may give way on a balcony or a slippery floor that could result in a passenger’s painful fall.
While ticket contracts may limit some aspects of liability, such as the filing timeframes associated with filing a personal injury claim, they cannot fully erase the cruise line’s responsibility as a common carrier. Operating as a common carrier also means that a cruise line could be held vicariously liable for the actions of a crew member. This can include a crew member’s negligence in alerting passengers to a present hazard, negligent supervision or even the criminal acts of that crew member.
In an ongoing cruise ship injury case being handled by Bernardo Pimentel II, a Leesfield & Partners Trial Attorney, our client suffered significant emotional trauma when it was revealed she was among a group of passengers filmed in their private cabin bathrooms. The footage was taken by a crew member who had unfettered access to the passengers’ rooms and planted a hidden camera. In addition to our client, the victims who were filmed included minors.
That crew member was sentenced to three decades in prison for producing child sex abuse material.
That case is ongoing.
In another devastating instance in which a crew member abused their employee status for their own, sick gain, includes a case in which a Canadian tourist was raped in her cabin by a member of the ship’s crew. The crew member in that case used his employee keycard to gain access to the woman’s cabin.
The firm recovered a multi-million amount for the woman in that case.
