Female crewmember drugged and raped not compelled to arbitration. Nothing about plaintiff’s tort claims related to, arose out of, or was connected with plaintiff’s crew agreement or her duties for defendant cruise lines, so these claims did not fall within the arbitration provision’s scope, but the other five counts did fall within the provision’s scope.
JANE DOE, Plaintiff, Counter Defendant, Appellee, versus PRINCESS CRUISE LINES, LTD., a foreign corporation, d.b.a. Princess Cruises, Defendant, Counter Claimant, Appellant.
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 19502; 113 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 734; 18 Wage & Hour Cas. 2d (BNA) 208; 23 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 439
September 23, 2011, Filed
PROCEDURAL POSTURE:
Plaintiff filed ten claims against defendant cruise lines– five falling under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.S. § 30104, or the general maritime law applicable to seamen, or the Seaman’s Wage Act, 46 U.S.C.S. § 10313 and five common law torts. The cruise line moved to compel arbitration of all ten counts. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied that motion in its entirety. The cruise appealed.
OVERVIEW:
Plaintiff, working for the cruise line on one of its ships, was drugged by other employees, raped and physically injured while she was unconscious, and when she reported to officials of the cruise line what had happened to her they treated her with indifference and even hostility, failed to provide her with proper medical treatment on board, and interfered with her attempts to obtain medical treatment and counseling ashore. Inter alia, the appellate court held that the plain language of the arbitration provision imposed the limitation that, to be arbitrable, the dispute had to relate to, arise from, or be connected with plaintiff’s crew agreement or the employment services that she performed for the cruise line. Nothing about plaintiff’s tort claims related to, arose out of, or was connected with plaintiff’s crew agreement or her duties for the cruise lines as a bar server, so it was not error to hold that these claims did not fall within the arbitration provision’s scope. The other five counts, however, arose directly from her undisputed status as a “seaman” and thus, fell within the scope of the arbitration provision.
OUTCOME:
The district court’s holding was reversed as to the tort claims and affirmed as to all remaining claims.
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In an action alleging a ship’s unseaworthiness, plaintiff failed to prove the existence of a triable issue precluding summary judgment (Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.510(c)) based on the failure of the ship’s doctor to properly diagnose an ectopic pregnancy. The doctor’s licensure, experience, knowledge, and skill remained unrebutted by plaintiff’s affidavits.
Ciprian C. Flueras, etc., Appellant, vs. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., Appellee.
No. 3D08-1937
COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA, THIRD DISTRICT
69 So. 3d 1101; 2011 Fla. App. LEXIS 15313; 36 Fla. L. Weekly D 2131
September 28, 2011, Opinion Filed
PROCEDURAL POSTURE:
Plaintiff, individually, and as the personal representative of a decedent’s estate, challenged a final summary judgment (Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.510(c)) of the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County (Florida) entered in favor of defendant shipowner in an action alleging the unseaworthiness of the shipowner’s vessel, arising out of the alleged negligence of the ship’s medical crew.
OVERVIEW:
The decedent worked on the shipowner’s cruise ship. The primary cause of her death was septic shock and a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Plaintiff argued that the entry of final summary judgment was erroneous based on the failure of the ship’s doctor and medical staff to properly diagnose the ectopic pregnancy. The appeals court found that because the doctor’s licensure, experience, knowledge, and skill remained unrebutted by plaintiff’s affidavits, plaintiff failed to prove the existence of a triable issue that would have precluded summary judgment as to whether the doctor was not fit for his ordinary duties or not up to the ordinary standards of his profession. The entry of summary judgment therefore had to be affirmed on this issue. However, as future discovery could yield information showing that the ship’s other medical crew were incompetent or unfit and the vessel therefore unseaworthy, the entry of summary judgment as to them was premature. Because plaintiff had not had the benefit of discovery regarding the existence of shipboard policies and procedures and whether the crew here complied with them, the entry of summary judgment on this issue was also premature.
OUTCOME:
The judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.
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Where a cruise ship passenger was injured while swimming at a beach, his negligence claim failed because his experts’ declarations were properly struck and the cruise line had no duty to warn him about swimming at the beach since it had neither actual nor constructive notice of a dangerous condition on the Pacific Ocean side of the beach.
GERALD E. SAMUELS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HOLLAND AMERICAN LINE-USA INC; HAL NEDERLAND NV CORP; HOLLAND AMERICAN LINE NV; HOLLAND AMERICA LINE INC, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 10-35933
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 18304
September 2, 2011, Filed
PROCEDURAL POSTURE:
Plaintiff passenger sued defendants, including a cruise line, alleging negligence regarding a duty to warn about a dangerous beach. The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington granted summary judgment in favor of the cruise line. The passenger appealed.
OVERVIEW:
While a cruise ship was anchored, the passenger and his family visited a nearby beach. The passenger was seriously injured by turbulent wave action while on the Pacific Ocean side of the beach. The passenger alleged that the cruise line breached its duty to warn him of the dangers associated with swimming there. The passenger’s two expert witnesses proffered that the extreme danger of entering the water on the Pacific Ocean side of the beach was commonly known throughout the cruise-line industry. The appellate court determined that it was not an abuse of discretion to strike the material portions of the experts’ declarations because (1) one expert was unable to provide any materials from the cruise-line industry to support his statement, and he did not contact any other comparable cruise lines to inquire whether they warned passengers, and (2) the other expert failed to specify in her declaration what information she relied on in reaching her conclusions. The cruise line had no duty to warn the passenger about swimming at the location, because the cruise line had neither actual nor constructive notice of a dangerous condition on the Pacific Ocean side of the beach.
OUTCOME:
The appellate court affirmed the judgment of the district court.