JUDGMENT AGAINST ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINES AFFIRMED
Monday, February 4th, 2008On 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:
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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.
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No. 3D06-2960
Lower Tribunal No. 03-24475
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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.
