Cruise Ship Sexual Assault BLOG

STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS: WHAT IS THIS AND WHEN DO I HAVE TO ACT?

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS: WHAT IS THIS AND WHEN DO I HAVE TO ACT?

I got a call the other day from an attorney in Pennsylvania. He said that his client was raped (”sexually assaulted”) on a cruise ship and that she-the client- had reported it to the FBI. So far, the client did what she should have done.

Then he said that the sexual assault took place about 2 ½ years ago. Oops. I told the lawyer that the one year statute of limitations in her ticket (the cruise line “passenger contract ticket”) had passed and there is nothing I could do now. It is too late to bring a claim.

The cruise lines have included in the fine print on all of the passenger tickets the terms under which you have to bring a claim against them. They say when (usually within one year of the accident or incident) and where ( Miami, Florida if it is Carnival Cruise Lines, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, or Celebrity Cruise Lines). By the way, in order to bring a claim in Florida, it is best to contact a Florida attorney. Each state licenses attorneys to practice only in that state.

Then I asked why she waited so long. He said that the passenger was told by the FBI agent investigating the rape that the statute of limitations was 3 years. Oh well. So much for advice from someone who is not a maritime lawyer. (It is true generally that the statute of limitations for maritime claims is 3 years. However, the cruise lines can limit that to one year, and of course they do in the ticket terms).

This is not meant to be legal advice or to explain everything about statutes of limitations or something you can rely on to determine what your statute of limitations is. To know about that, call a lawyer who knows about the field in which you have a claim.

But here are some of the concepts: The “statute of limitations” for a claim is a general term which means the time within which you have to file a lawsuit. First, it is not always expressed in a statute. Sometimes it is in a contract like a passenger ticket. And there are provisions in some statutes, commonly in medical malpractice statutes, that it starts (”begins to run”) from when you knew or should have known about the medical malpractice. This does not apply to claims for medical malpractice against the cruise lines.

Second, there are different periods of time or statutes of limitations for different types of claims, and the statute can be different in each state. Generally, for maritime seaman’s claims the statute is 3 years; for passengers it is 1 year. Generally, in Florida, for general negligence it is 4 years; for wrongful death it is 2 years; and for medical malpractice it is 2 years.

Third, the only way to stop the clock, beat the deadline, or as the law says “toll the statute” is to file a lawsuit. The clock is not stopped just by reporting the accident. You have to file suit. That means that you have to contact an attorney in time for him or her to evaluate and investigate the claim and to prepare and file a complaint in court. If you wait until the day the statute runs out or the day before it may be too late to do anything.

The best way to determine the statute of limitations is to call an attorney and to tell him or her about your case. The attorney will tell you. Do not rely on someone else or the internet or this blog even. Call the attorney’s office today. You can call us here at Hickey Law Firm, P.A. toll free at 1.800.215.7117. Barbara Hernandez, Karla Huertas, Sandy Talavera, Darby Mitchell, and attorney John H. (Jack) Hickey are here to take your call, get your information, and listen. Thanks.

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STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND VENUE

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND VENUE;
WHEN AND WHERE YOU HAVE TO FILE A CLAIM FOR PERSONAL
INJURIES, TRIP AND FALL, SLIP AND FALL, OR SEXUAL ASSAULT ORRAPE AGAINST A CRUISE LINE

AND

THE 5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

It’s happened again. I got a call this last week from a young lawyer who blew the statute of limitations in a case against the cruise line. (I am a maritime lawyer located in Miami, Florida and have 28 years experience with claims against the cruise lines. For the first 17 years of my career, I represented the cruise lines; for the last 11 years, I have represented the injured passenger against the cruise lines).

Anyway, this lawyer’s client had a slip and fall accident on a cruise ship and was injured. The lawyer who called me was located in Miami but was not experienced in cruise ship claims. He did not know about the one year time limit. He dealt with the adjuster for the cruise line himself. The adjuster kept writing the lawyer saying that the lawyer needs to send more documentation of the claim. Then time passed and it was more than one year after the accident. Then the adjuster said the cruise line did not have to pay anything because the deadline had passed. That is called “Gotcha”. Now the cruise line can refuse to pay anything at all. And that is just what they do.

I get calls like this from lawyers (and from the passengers directly) all across the country. (I am a Board Certified as a Civil Trial Lawyer by The Florida Bar and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. I lecture on maritime law and on personal injury claims around the country and get a lot of calls from attorneys in other states). I want to help them and their clients but most of the time I cannot if they have gone over the one year time limit.

Here are the 5 things you should know about any claim against the cruise line for personal injury, slip and fall, trip and fall, or sexual assault or rape:

1. When you are injured on a cruise ship, maritime law applies. Maritime law is a specialized area of the law. Maritime law applies to personal injuries on any vessel (like a cruise ship or gambling boat or tanker or freighter) on a navigable waterway (like the Atlantic Ocean, the Inter-coastal Waterway, any river, or the Caribbean Sea). It applies to Jones Act seaman, that is the people who work on ships, and it applies to passengers on cruise ships.

2. Most lawyers around the country do not know maritime law and have little if any experience with it. Maritime law is something most lawyers around the country do not do and do not know. Most lawyers just do not know the law in this area. They operate assuming the law is just like the law in New York or Illinois or California or Florida, or any other state. It is not. That can be fatal to your claim if a mistake like the one above is made. That passenger will get nothing from the cruise line.

In fact, most maritime lawyers do not handle claims of passenger against the cruise lines. Passenger claims is also a specialty within the maritime law. The law for claims of passengers against the cruise lines is different than the law for claims of the ship’s employees against the cruise lines. In both situations, maritime law applies. But there is a different set of laws which apply to claims brought by the employees (seaman) than for claims brought by the passengers.

Many maritime lawyers around the country know about claims by the ship’s employees (called “seaman” even if the employee is a deck hand or an engine room cleaner or a waiter onboard the ship for example) but know little or nothing about passenger claims. Not knowing the cruise lines and not being a lawyer who represents passengers against cruise lines can also result in you recovering a lost less in your claim. Why? Because if your lawyer does not know what he or she is doing, if your lawyer is not a maritime lawyer who takes these cases to trial here in Miami, Florida, the cruise lines will know this. They will take advantage of this. You may receive nothing as in the case above or you may receive only a fraction of your claim as the cruise lines will know who the experienced lawyers are.

3. YOU PRESERVE YOUR CLAIM ONLY BY FILING SUIT IN THE RIGHT CITY AND STATE. Filling out an accident report and writing letters to the cruise line do not preserve your claim. Writing a letter to the cruise line does let them know about you and your claim. It does not preserve your claim. If you filled out an accident report on the day of the accident on the ship, and if you wrote a million letters to the cruise lines, but you do not file suit within one year, YOU HAVE NO CLAIM AND THE CRUISE LINES WILL PAY YOU NOTHING. This is not to say that you cannot get a settlement in the right case before filing suit. Sometimes you can. But you need to right lawyer in the right city and state to do this.

4. THE CRUISE LINES REQUIRE THAT YOU FILE SUIT AGAINST THEM IN A CERTAIN CITY AND STATE SPECIFIED IN YOUR TICKET. This is called in the law a “venue selection clause”. Buried in the fine print of your Passenger Contract Ticket, back many pages, there is a paragraph about where you have to sue them. It is usually toward the end of the ticket. No matter where you are from, no matter where you bought the ticket, no matter where you got on the ship, this rule applies.

In all cases against Carnival Cruise Lines, you must file suit in Miami, Florida.
In all cases against Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, you must file suit in Miami, Florida.
In all cases against Norwegian Cruise Lines, you must file suit in Miami, Florida.

Other cruise lines specify other cities and states.

5. The right lawyer for your claim against a cruise line is a lawyer who is experienced at bringing claims against the cruise lines, who is located in the city and state where you have to file against the cruise lines, and who is a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer. If you have been injured on Carnival Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, or Norwegian Cruise Lines, you need a maritime lawyer with experience in passenger claims against the cruise lines and who is located in Miami, Florida. This includes all cases of personal injuries, slip and fall, trip and fall, and sexual assault and rape. Look for the one with experience (with maritime passenger claims against the cruise lines), location (in Miami, Florida), and Board Certification (as a Civil Trial Lawyer).

Hickey Law Firm, P.A. is located in the heart of Miami, Florida. They represent cruise passengers from all over the United States and from around the world. Their clients live in New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Ohio, Minnesota, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama just to name a few.

John H. (Jack) Hickey was born and raised here in Miami. He represented the cruise lines for 17 years. Now he is on the other side. Hickey is a Past President of the Dade County (Miami) Bar Association and is Board Certified as a Civil Trial Lawyer by The Florida Bar and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy.

No matter where you live, no matter where you got on the ship, CALL TODAY FOR A FREE CONSULTATION: 1.800.215.7117

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JUDGMENT AGAINST ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINES AFFIRMED

Monday, February 4th, 2008

On January 16, 2008, the Third District Court of Appeal, the mid-level appellate court in the Florida state courts, affirmed a judgment following a jury verdict against Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in the amount of $3,384,185. The jury verdict was for the personal injury of a seaman, a First Officer onboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. The seaman suffered a herniated disc in a fall from a ladder while entering a boat. He received no surgery for the condition but could not work on a ship again. The seaman was represented by John H. (Jack) Hickey of Hickey Law Firm, P.A. in Miami, Florida. (See, www.hickeylawfirm.com).

The story starts when the cruise line required its officers to man a fast rescue boat to provide security to the ship when in the Port of Miami. The United States Coast Guard has written letters to this cruise line and others requesting that they provide such patrol boats each manned with 2 people. Royal Caribbean chose to man each boat with one person and required that its people enter the boats from a broken ladder at the Port. The ladder was a verticle “fixed ladder”. That is, the ladder was verticle and attached permanently to a surface that is to a concrete pier. The only problem was that the last 3 feet or so of the ladder was bent in at a 45 degree tilt from the verticle and the end of the ladder was not fixed or bolted to anything. When First Officer Goran Bakalar went to get into the boat from that ladder for the first time, the boat moved, the ladder moved and he fell back about 6′ down onto his back. He suffered a herniated disc in his back. As a result of that injury, the cruise line said that he could not work on a ship again.

Because Mr. Bakalar was an employee on the ship, he was a Jones Act Seaman. That means that he had all of the rights under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. Sec. 688, et. seq. which means the right to sue for pain and suffering, and the seaman had all the rights under the General Maritime Law. That in turn means that the seaman is entitled to Maintenance and Cure. This is an old expression in the General Maritime Law for the obligation of the shipowner to pay for the medical expenses and for the reasonable living expenses of the seaman until the seaman is declared by a physian to be a “Maximum Medical Improvement”.

Here Mr. Bakalar needed back surgery, which included back fusion at 2 levels. At the time of trial however, Mr. Bakalar had been allowed no such treatment. In fact, the cruise line contended that Mr. Bakalar did not need surgery and that the back condition was merely a bulging disc. The cruise line fought this case for years, and would not settle the case. We went to trial. The jury’s verdict for this injury is a record breaker. The cruise line after the verdict appealed. Interest accrued on the verdict at 9%. By the time the appellate court affirmed, the interest alone which was owed was over $500,000.00. Thus, with interest, the final amount owed after the appellate decision was just under $4 Million. The full amount was paid. Here is the opinion:

__________________
The Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida, January Term, A.D. 2008

Opinion filed January 16, 2008.

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D06-2960

Lower Tribunal No. 03-24475

________________

Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd.,

Appellant,

vs.

Goran Bakalar,

Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Scott Bernstein, Judge.

Salas, Ede, Peterson & Lage; Hicks & Kneale and Dinah Stein and Mark Hicks, for appellant.

John Hickey; Elizabeth K. Russo, for appellee.

Before RAMIREZ, SUAREZ, and ROTHENBERG, JJ.

PER CURIAM

Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. appeals a jury verdict of $3,384,185 as being against the manifest weight of the evidence. As we recently stated in Glabman v.

De La Cruz, 954 So. 2d 60, 62 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007), “despite the fact that a jury verdict is higher or lower than the reviewing court believes it ought to have been, the court should decline to interfere with the verdict.” Unlike Glabman, Royal Caribbean has not pointed to any highly emotional testimony which caused anyone to cry. We find no abuse of discretion in the trial judge’s refusal to grant a new trial or remittitur. See Lassitter v. Int’l Union of Operating Eng’rs, 349 So. 2d 622, 627 (Fla. 1977) (stating that the court may order a remittitur or new trial if it believes “the amount is so great or small as to indicate that the jury must have found it while under the influence of passion, prejudice or gross mistake”).

Affirmed.

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Archive for February, 2008

STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS: WHAT IS THIS AND WHEN DO I HAVE TO ACT?

STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND VENUE

JUDGMENT AGAINST ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINES AFFIRMED

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