For most people who go on a cruise, the experience will be an entirely pleasant one. Generally, as when riding a bicycle or driving, it will be enjoyable and will rarely involve an accident, but there’s a major difference when it comes to cruises — your opportunity to seek a remedy when something goes wrong.
If you’re in a car accident and the other driver is at fault, you can typically seek redress. Ditto if you are on your bike and involved in a collision as the result of another’s negligence. But when it comes to cruising, any incident a passenger encounters will often have them jumping through a ton of hoops to seek a remedy, and ultimately to no avail. Why is this the case? And what solutions could be put forward to fix it? Let’s look now.
The Pursuit from Port to Port
When an incident occurs on a cruise, a number of steps ensue as a passenger seeks to obtain a resolution. If they consider the cruise liner to be at fault, and seek a remedy like the payment of medical bills and other expenses, then the first port of call is typically a home-based lawyer. But oftentimes little is gained from this action given the unique dynamics of laws surrounding cruises. If an injury has occurred on what is deemed a ‘foreign cruise’ (defined as one where it begins and ends in ports outside the cruise passenger’s home nation), then the ability for the passenger to sue in their own country may be non-existent.
It doesn’t matter if Cuba is barely 100 miles from the Florida coast; if you broke a leg sailing into Havana you’re unlikely to get a remedy in Tallahassee. A further challenge concerns timing. While maritime law commonly has a three-year statute of limitations for the filing of claims, many cruise liner providers make it a one-year provision within their ticketing terms and conditions. One year may sound like a long time but, if you’ve sustained an injury and spent time in hospital and at rehabilitation, and thereafter need to potentially plan another international trip to where the cruise liner calls home or makes port in order to utilise a local lawyer, then time can run short; not to mention the expense of pursuing a lawsuit overseas, and at a time in life when money may be extra tight due to medical expenses.
Sailing into Headwinds
The difficult of successfully suing a cruise liner notwithstanding, recent years have seen a rise in claims against cruise liners. While cruise operators may like to suggest that this is just the byproduct of opportunistic and quarrelsome people, in reality the evidence suggests that the genesis of many claims is a result of “self-inflicted wounds” by cruise liners: from inadequate medical attention on board that sees someone die as a result of poor care, to the introduction of onboard attractions like trampolines that result in a broken bone, to off-board excursions that see passengers subject to muggings or other incidents owing to the cruise liner’s failure to take reasonable precautions. Leading cruise providers in the Caribbean, like Carnival Royal Caribbean and more, have all had claims brought against them for incidents like these.
Running Aground
The under-reporting and apparent failure by many providers to proactively prevent sexual assault — and take a strong stand should it occur — has led to cruise liners once again making own goals. At present, an employee of cruise liner A, fired for sexual assault, could seek a job aboard cruise liner B without the first provider sharing information about his dismissal with the second. In the era of #MeToo, when it’s understood that sexual assault isn’t exactly the most publicly reported crime on cruises, a failure to change here is a glaring problem.
These episodes show that there are unquestionably issues with the way many cruise liners are structured. While there is no suggestion that anything illegal is being done — because ultimately these liners are operating under the law as it stands — it’s clear that the current laws surrounding the industry leave a lot to be desired. And though globalisation has made our world more economically borderless, stronger ‘common sense’ legal structures that can be applied to business in the global marketplace are yet to catch up.
Murky Waters
The reality is that cruise ships will always have some element of risk. This is not to excuse failures when they occur, but it does help explain why cruise ship operators are often subject to lawsuits, and why they are sometimes able to parry them successfully. The decks can often be wet and slippery, the thoroughfares can be narrow, and the constant rocking and bobbing of the ship — that can be even worse in bad weather — all mean that cruise liners can defend against many injuries as not being their fault, but simply unavoidable.
It is no secret that some cruise ship passengers regard a holiday aboard as a license to drink to excess. Even when staff may seek to diligently enforce the responsible service of alcohol, passengers who go bar-hopping or get (sober) friends to buy drinks for them can evade enforcement, and this can result in an accident on the seas, just the same as it could on land.
These dangers are what many nations’ legal traditions would define as a voluntary assumption of risk by the passenger, and one a cruise liner can easily defend against when a passenger buys a ticket and agrees to the terms and conditions of the journey. But the recognition that cruise liners are not always to blame for every accident doesn’t excuse them from liability for all accidents.
Finding a True Course
Understanding the situation as it stands, and what could be changed to help fix it, is important not only to passengers of cruise ships but also to the ongoing popularity and profitability of the cruise industry as a whole. There may be no easy answers for cruise liners, especially if the law allows for legal exemption (even if it’s also an evasion of moral responsibility), but ultimately we’re in an era when tourists have greater choice than ever when it comes to holidaymaking. They also have access to troves of online data and reviews that detail the reality, behind the glitzy brochures, of a vacation. Airlines around the world that have never had a single crash — among them: Virgin, Qantas and Hawaiian Airlines — readily market their safety record to passengers as a reason to fly with them.
Any cruise liner prepared to break from the mould and support common sense reform would not only gain plaudits for the industry leadership they take, but also win some positive headlines that contrast with the many negative ones that damage brands and deter future passengers.
