A putative class suing Royal Caribbean after a now-former employee secretly placed a hidden camera in their rooms is fighting the cruise line’s bid to force their damages claims into arbitration, saying it’s “absurd” to argue that they agreed to waive their right to litigate such claims.
In a brief filed Thursday in Florida federal court, the plaintiffs said that just because the contract they signed when booking their cruise contains an arbitration clause doesn’t mean that they agreed to waive any right to litigate their claims. In the suit, the plaintiffs accuse Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. of negligence and inflicting emotional distress by video voyeurism and sexual assault, among other things.
Moreover, a “simple reading” of both the Ending Forced Arbitration Act and a federal maritime statute prohibiting forced arbitration for intentional torts obligates the court to deny the motion, according to the brief.
“The EFAA was enacted precisely to prevent these exact outcomes,” the plaintiffs argue.
“It is very telling that [Royal Caribbean] tries to characterize all of these claims as simply ‘video voyeurism,'” the plaintiffs add later in their brief. “Unfortunately, the admitted and undisputed facts are much darker, and much more devastating than any reported video voyeurism case.”
The litigation is one of dozens of cases filed against Royal Caribbean over voyeurism incidents involving a former crew member, Arvin Joseph Mirasol, which occurred for three months in late 2023 and early 2024. Mirasol was sentenced to 30 years in prison last August after previously pleading guilty to producing child pornography.
Mirasol admitted breaking into and trespassing in passengers’ cabins, hiding under their beds while they were in the room and videotaping women and even minor children while they were undressing and taking showers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
The scheme was uncovered in February 2024 after a guest onboard Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas discovered a hidden camera affixed to the counter under the sink in their bathroom, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Royal Caribbean, a Miami-based Liberian corporation, has asked the Florida federal court to send all claims asserted by U.S.-based plaintiffs to arbitration. Claims filed by plaintiffs outside the U.S. must be brought in an English court, according to the cruise line’s briefing.
In its motion to compel filed last month, the cruise line argued that the arbitration clause in the underlying contract exempts emotional distress injuries from arbitration only if they “‘arise out of bodily injury’ and therefore constitute an inarbitrable ‘personal injury.'”
“In other words, plaintiffs’ contract requires arbitration unless the emotional distress resulted from physical injury,” according to the suit. “Here, however, plaintiffs allege that their emotional distress resulted from the discovery of Mirasol’s secret, voyeuristic acts, not from a physical injury inflicted by Mirasol.”
The plaintiffs, meanwhile, argue that Royal Caribbean is “simply wrong” in arguing that the former employees’ conduct does not qualify as a “sexual assault dispute” under the EFAA and that the cruise line is “glossing over the difference between how ‘sexual act’ and ‘sexual contact’ are statutorily defined.”
“Courts across circuits — including the Eleventh Circuit — have made clear that this definition [of ‘sexual contact’] includes self-masturbation, whether performed by the perpetrator or the victim, regardless of whether the victim is aware it is occurring, because any person includes oneself, rather than the alternate language included in the statute, another person, which does not include oneself,” according to the plaintiffs’ brief.
The lead plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, filed the litigation last October on behalf of a putative class of passengers who were aboard Symphony of the Seas between Dec. 1, 2023, and Feb. 26, 2024, and who stayed in cabins aboard the vessel that were serviced by Mirasol. The claims against Royal Caribbean include negligence, liability for invasion of privacy and video voyeurism, and infliction of emotional distress.
Counsel for the plaintiffs said that they’re looking forward to resolving the claims.
“We all want to carefully deal with these types of sexual crimes and are eager to work with the cruise line principals — some of the most respected and charitable leaders in our community — on making sure we can all help prevent them in the future,” said Jason Margulies of Lipcon Margulies & Winkleman PA and Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC, co-lead counsel for the proposed class.
Counsel for Royal Caribbean could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
The plaintiffs are represented by Adam M. Moskowitz, Joseph M. Kaye and Leo A. Wiesinger of The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC and Jason R. Margulies, Michael A. Winkleman, Jacqueline Garcell, and Marc E. Weiner of Lipcon Margulies & Winkleman PA.
Royal Caribbean is represented by Kurt K. Lunkenheimer, Hayley H. Ryan and John J. Sullivan of Cozen O’Connor and Jerry D. Hamilton and Krista Fowler Acuna of Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP.
The case is Doe et al. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. et al., case number 1:24-cv-23953, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
