Thirteen years ago I represented a young woman from St. Augustine, Florida. She was employed as a cook on a private yacht owned by a multi-millionaire tycoon. She went ashore to Cabo San Lucas with a group of fellow crew members. They ended up leaving her in a nightclub and returned to the yacht. When she tried to walk back to the marina
A super busy week took me away from the computer for the last week. What a fun week at Cruise Law and in the strange world of cruising:
Lose Some / Win Some: A trial involving our client, an injured passenger, ended poorly for us and well for Royal Caribbean which obtained a defense
This was a historic week in the world of cruising.
Congress passed the Cruise Vessel and Safety Act, which will help make cruising safer for U.S. families. Cruise lines will be required to install peepholes in cabin doors, maintain anti-retroviral medications and rape kits for victims, improve crime evidence handling procedures and – for the first time in
The Los Angeles Business Journal reports today that Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas and NCL’s Norwegian Star are pulling out of Los Angeles because of the increasing violence in Mexico.
Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas, which had been sailing on 7 day cruises to Mexico, will leave L.A. in January 2011, and will eventually
Last night, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a safety bill for cruise passengers which will require cruise ships to reports crimes on the high seas to the FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard.
The bill will require the cruise industry to comply with a number of security provisions including specific rail heights, peep holes, warning devices, and cabin security measures. The requirment that cruise
A local ABC affiliate in Boston WCVB TV5 recently aired a special investigation into the issue of cruise ship crime: "Crimes On Cruise Ships Often Not Reported – Local Victims Hope Laws At Sea Change."
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The ABC affiliate accurately concludes that cruise lines are not required to report crimes on cruise ships in international waters. The
For the past three years, I have written several hundreds of pages of stories about the cruise ship cases we have handled. The cruise lines’ skill, in engaging in an endless number of stunts and cover ups before judges and juries, our U.S. Congress and the American people, never ceases to amaze me.
I have written these stories with an eye toward incorporating these experiences into a
This is reason no. 2 in the series: Top 10 Reasons Not To Cruise
Imagine owning a business where one of your employees drugged and raped a patron. What would you do?
Would you interrogate the victim before calling the police? Would you tape record the victim without her permission? Would you demand that the victim prepare
A blockbuster story has been published in Germany tracking crimes and the "disappearances" of passengers and crew members from cruise ships over the past decade.
Published in the popular German magazine "Wunderwelt Wisen," the article discusses the cases of passengers James Scavonne, Dianne Brimble, Merrian Carver, Christopher Caldwell, and George Smith IV
A local news station in Phoenix, Arizona, ABC-15 (KNXV), is reporting on the latest efforts by Kendall Carver to protect families who cruise in international waters.
In a video interview entitled "Valley Man Pushes for New Laws after Daughter Vanishes," Mr. Carver explains that his 40-year-old vanished on the second day of a seven-day
Today we had the honor of being invited to speak to the maritime law society at Stetson University College of Law.
Stetson has the oldest law school in Florida, founded in 1900. Its campus is located on the beautiful Mediterranean style architecture campus in Gulfport, Florida.
I discussed the topic “Crime on Cruise Ships,”
The San Diego Union Tribune reports that federal prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty against a passenger who is charged with beating his wife to death while on a Carnival cruise last summer.
The newspaper reports that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego charged Robert John McGill with first-degree murder and kidnapping of his wife, Shirley.
TIME magazine’s not-yet-published December 14th edition contains a story about Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas called “Floating Island.”
I thought that the title of the article was rather weak. “Floating Foreclosure” might be more accurate . . .
The best line in the article – to cruise lines, every passenger is a
The House of Representatives passed the Cruise Vessel Security & Safety Act (HR 3360) today. This cruise bill was previously part of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2009, but was voted on today as a ‘stand alone" bill to speed up its enactment.
Congress approved the bill by a resounding vote of 416 to 4.
A number of "All Star"
The Daily Breeze newspaper reports that the criminal trial has begun in Los Angeles of a Princess Cruises headwaiter who is accused of sexually assaulting a passenger from Kansas City.
Coral Princess Head Waiter – Sexual Predator or Family Man?
Princess crew member Jorge Manuel Teixeira, 39, from Portugal, is charged in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles
From time to time, Cruise Law News will have a guest blogger. Caitlin Burke is our first guest author. Ms. Burke is a recent graduate from the University of Florida. She majored in Recreation, Parks and Sport Management. Ms. Burke wrote a senior honor’s thesis entitled a "Qualitative Study of Victimization and Legal Issues Relevant to Cruise
The Virginia Pilot newspaper reports that a passenger was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for downloading child pornography.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested passenger Timothy David Webb, 32, after he disembarked Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship 
Grandeur of the Seas at the Norfolk cruise ship terminal. Webb is a convicted sex offender and has a conviction in
On Friday, the United States House of Representatives passed landmark legislation requiring cruise ships to promptly report crimes at sea to the United States Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Newspapers throughout the United States covered the historic legislation which finally brought some long overdue accountability to the cruise industry. And, as usual, the Miami
