Daniel Fisher, was injured when he fell in the sauna/steam room aboard the Carnival Paradise. We did not represent Mr. Fisher, but according to court records, he entered the sauna at around 9:00 a.m. and was the only person there for approximately 15 minutes. When he was ready to leave, he got up and tangled himself in sweat-soaked towels that were sticking together. He ended up falling face-first on the steam room floor.
After leaving the steam room, he sought care from the cruise ship's medical staff and complained of pain to his left shoulder and humerus. Upon returning home, Mr. Fisher sued Carnival, alleging that he was seriously injured because the steam room was “improperly maintained” and “... did not have either handrails, warning signs, or skid-proof flooring surfaces.”
Carnival’s defense counsel filed a motion for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 in an effort to have the entire case dismissed, claiming there was “no genuine issue as to any material fact” and the moving party was “entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
Cruise lines like Carnival routinely rely on the legal concept that a cruise ship does not serve as an “insurer to its passengers.” Under Federal Maritime law, in order for a passenger to prevail in an injury claim against a cruise line, the plaintiff must prove the following:
(1) the defendant cruise line owed the passenger a legal obligation;
(2) the cruise line breached that legal duty;
(3) the cruise line’s breach was the proximate cause of the passenger's injuries; and
(4) the passenger actually suffered damages such as a personal injury, medical expenses, lost wages, or other money damages.
WARNINGS
Cruise lines must warn passengers of dangers that “the cruise line knows or reasonably should have known,” and “which are not apparent and obvious to the passenger.” Similarly, cruise lines are required under the law to take corrective action to prevent passenger injuries only where the cruise lines know or should have known of the dangerous condition(s).
In this case, Mr. Fisher attempted to hold Carnival responsible on the theory that the steam room was unreasonably dangerous because it was “improperly maintained” and “did not have either handrails, warning signs, or skid-proof flooring surfaces.” To bolster his claim, he offered expert opinions from Dr. Alan R. Caskey, Ph.D. that 1) the steam room should have been equipped with handrails/handholds; 2) some of the tiled surfaces should have had non-slip adhesive strips attached to them; 3) Carnival did not properly maintain the steam room because it failed to rinse the benches and surfaces on which users sat or reclined as frequently as it should have; and 4) the steam room should have been equipped with a clock so that users could monitor how long they were in there.
Carnival successfully argued that Dr. Caskey’s second, third, and fourth opinions should be excluded on various grounds, which left Mr. Fisher with only one opinion: Carnival should have installed handrails or handholds in its steam room. Dr. Caskey’s opinion was based on the assumption that Carnival owed “the highest degree of care [to] its passengers consistent with the safe operation of the vessel based on industry standards with respect to accessing public spas, pools, and hot tubs.:
In dismissing the case, the judge ruled that Dr. Caskey’s opinions failed to create “a genuine issue of material fact” and granted Carnival’s motion for summary judgment. The court acknowledged that Dr. Caskey’s might have shown that it was generally foreseeable that the absence of handrails in the steam room could cause someone someday to fall. But the court concluded that “someone could, some time, get injured doing just about anything.” In other words, the legal standard relied upon by the expert was too high; instead, Carnival's liability “hinge[d] on whether it knew or should have known” that the steam room was unsafe absent a handrail.
The key is that an injured passenger must prove that Carnival had actual or constructive knowledge that creating and maintaining the steam room without a handrail would have caused an injury. Moreover, even under a general-foreseeability theory, there was no evidence supplied that accidents similar to Mr. Fisher’s “occurred with enough frequency to put Carnival on constructive notice” of a dangerous condition. In fact, all of the evidence suggests such accidents had never occurred before, despite the fact that up to a hundred men used the steam room each day. Specifically, Carnival's records showed no reported injuries or accidents in the ship's steam room in the three years preceding Mr. Fisher’s fall even though fifty to one-hundred passengers use the steam room every day.
The fact that no prior incidents or complaints were received with respect to the steam room, despite its heavy use, indicates that Carnival lacked notice that the steam room was unreasonably dangerous without handrails. Additionally, Mr. Fisher presented insufficient evidence that Carnival’s failure to include handrails in the steam room caused his accident or even contributed in any way to it.
This case is important because it shows that simply because one is injured while on a cruise, the injured party may not have an actual, viable legal claim, much less what is required to maintain and prove that a cruise line is responsible for the injury.
Our cruise ship injury attorneys and law firm are located in Miami, Florida, a short distance from Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Norwegian, Regent's Seven Seas, MSC, and other major cruise lines’ corporate headquarters, as well as the Port of Miami, the busiest cruise ship passenger terminal in the world. Since 1991, we have successfully investigated and litigated hundreds of cases and claims a year on behalf of injured cruise ship passengers and their families from around the world.
If you have been injured while on a cruise, we recommend that you consult with an experienced maritime injury attorney as soon as possible.