Walker & O’Neill recently settled a claim against Royal Caribbean Cruises on behalf of a seriously injured former crewmember, originally from St. Vincent in the West Indies.
The crewmember was employed as a stateroom attendant for a number of years. Stateroom attendants, also referred to as cabin attendants or cabin cleaners, are required to work
Today a jury here in Miami returned a significant award against a major shipping company, Maersk Lines.
The case involved William Skye, a 57 year old Jones Act seaman (crewmember) from New Jersey, who worked for Maersk Lines Limited as a Chief Mate (the crewmember rank just under Master / Captain) aboard a Maersk container
A dozen newspapers in the U.K. have reported on P&O Cruises’ decision to pay its crewmembers a basic salary of 75 pence an hour (around $1.20 an hour) which turns out to be approximately $400 a month. Cash tips are being phased out with automatic gratuities being added to the passengers’ bills. But rather than
Today is the 100 day anniversary of the Costa Concordia crash.
Things are back to normal for many people associated with the disaster. Carnival CEO Micky Arison is back to his front row seats at the American Airlines arena watching his professional basketball team, the Miami Heat. Costa CEO Pier Luigi Foschi is scheduled to begin to
A reader of Cruise Law News in Brazil has informed us that a crewmember of the Armonia cruise ship, operated by MSC Cruises, died yesterday after being admitted to the hospital in serious condition.
A newspaper in Brazil (G1 in Sao Paulo) reports that a local woman, Fabiana Pasquarelli, age 30, was taken from
Newspapers in Hawaii are reporting today that a twenty-seven year cruise ship employee was pulled from the water at Kalapaki Beach this afternoon.
The local police are saying that bystanders brought the man to shore and administered CPR. Paramedics later continued CPR after arriving on the scene, and transported the crew member to Wilcox Hospital, where he is listed in critical condition.
The crew
Yesterday, a jury in Miami returned a $1,000,000 verdict against a Miami based cruise line whose ship employee underwent an unnecessary surgery to insert a pacemaker which he did not need.
The case involves a Celebrity Cruises chef, Shalesh Buttoo, who experienced headaches and pain to his face while working on a Celebrity cruise ship. Although only
Each year 14,000,000 people (yes 14 million) will go on a cruise. There are literally hundreds of passengers, as well as crewmembers, who will suffer a serious back injury or break their ankle, leg or hip after slipping and falling while cruising. Once back home after the cruise, they find it difficult to think of hiring a lawyer who they have never met in order
.jpg)
Our firm and our co-counsel Jonathan Aronson spent a few days this week in Jamaica.
On Tuesday, we toured the port of Freeport – Montego Bay where we will begin advertising our services helping Jamaican crewmembers injured on cruise ships. We met with the head of the terminal and enjoyed a VIP tour of the facility where we will be
A reader of Cruise Law News has informed me that CNN’s iReport contains a message seeking help from a crewmember aboard the Gemini cruise ship operated by the now defunct cruise line "Happy Cruises."
Happy Cruises is a Spanish cruise company which abruptly ceased operations on September 24th. When cruise lines suddenly stop operations due to financial
In the past month, I have written about the progression of federal court cases which have chipped away at the rights of foreign crewmembers, who are the backbone of the U.S. based cruise industry.
The cases of Lindo v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd. and Henriquez v. NCL showed that the Eleventh Circuit would not hesitate to affirm the dismissal of the claims filed on behalf of NCL crewmembers
Last week we reported on the case of Lindo v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd. where the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal of a case filed on behalf of a seriously injured NCL crewmember from a U.S. court, leaving him to seek compensation in Nicaragua.
Today the same court entered a similar order in the case
Yesterday, in the case of Lindo v. NCL, a federal appellate court entered a decision which further stripped the legal rights away from seriously injured cruise employees.
The Lindo case is the latest decision which reflects that our judiciary has little concern for the rights of cruise employees outside of the U.S.
Eight years ago the
An arbitrator in California recently awarded substantial compensation on behalf of a seriously injured Carnival crewmember.
California attorney Stephen Estey issued a press release which stated that he obtained an arbitration award for a crewmember working aboard the Carnival cruise ship Imagination in the amount of $800,000 for injuries sustained in June 2008. The press release states that Polish citizen Marcin Sokolowski was employed by Carnival as
In the last few years, the major cruise lines have been trying to enforce arbitration provisions which they inserted into the crew member’s employment agreements.
Many of our crew clients around the world ask us "what is arbitration?" and was is the difference between an "arbitration" and a "trial."
Arbitration is a process where disputes between parties are decided
.jpg)
The press in Mexico is raising questions about the criminal charges leveled against Nelson Pérez Torres, who is jailed and awaiting trial for the murder of Royal Caribbean crewmember, Monika Markiewicz.
Ms. Markiewizc was an accomplished musician employed as a violinist aboard Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. In February, she disembarked in Cozumel from
Today we began advertising in Jamaica, as I mentioned in an earlier blog. The ad below will begin appearing in some of the newspapers in Jamaica, and a variation will appear on some of the billboards in Jamaica.
I have been a lawyer for 28 years. I have never advertised on television, radio, newspapers or billboards. We have relied on our reputation
I just returned from a three day trip to Montego Bay.
My co-counsel, Jonathan Aronson, and I met with several of our clients who were seriously injured while working for Miami based cruise lines and have been languishing in Jamaica after being dumped back at home. Seeing our clients, in their local communities, with their
