The following is a description of a sexual assault case we have filed.  This is a case involving a sexual assault aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas, a cruise ship owned by Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.

 On January 1, 2010, one of the crew members on Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas, an adult man, let himself into the room of Jane Doe, a fifteen year old girl. The crew member forced the minor child to perform oral sex on him. This constitutes sexual assault and battery on a minor. The crew member then commanded Jane Doe not to tell anyone about the incident and threatened her with physical violence if she did tell anyone about the incident.    

Royal Caribbean caused this incident by failing to have properly screen, train and monitor its crewmembers, and by failing to have procedures and safeguards in place to control the crew access to passenger cabins.

When adult male crewmembers are provided with key cards giving them access to passenger cabins, it is foreseeable that an adult male crewmember would desire to, intend to, attempt to, and actually enter a passenger’s cabin and sexually assault or battery a passenger in his or her cabin, such as a crew member did to Jane Doe. 

 The cruise line has knowledge of prior similar incidents.  This knowledge is of incidents where passengers of the cruise ship have been sexually assaulted and battered by crewmembers, whether in the cabin of the passenger or outside of the cabin elsewhere on the ship.