Gordon Jones has been in the news lately. Have you heard of him?
Probably not.
But you all have heard of the companies that killed him: Oil giant BP, and Transocean – the operator of the foreign flagged drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon.
Gordon was just 28 years old when he died on April 20th. He left a pregnant wife and child behind. His Facebook
Mother Jones published an interesting article this morning by Stephanie Mencimer, "Will the Cruise Industry Do BP’s Dirty Work?" about how the cruise line lobbyists may join forces with BP to help the oil company dodge liability for the eleven workers killed on the Transocean drilling rig.
You see the drilling rig is considered to be a
An article in the Baltimore Sun entitled "Pleasure Cruise Bring Risks, Too" addresses the limited liability of cruise lines when tragedy strikes a family during a cruise. Written by Frank Roylance, the article begins with the sad circumstances of Carnival cruise passenger Carol Olson who died during what appears to be a very lax, unsupervised and negligently
The Baltimore Sun reports on the death of a 71 year old passenger from Reisterstown, Maryland , Carol Olson, during a snorkeling excursion in the Bahamas. Ms. Olson was a passenger on Carnival’s Pride cruise ship and booked the excursion from the cruise line.
Other passengers described having problems with the current. The excursion was described as poorly managed with
Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) has introduced an amendment to the Death on the High Seas Act ("DOHSA") to permit families to recover reasonable compensation when a loved one dies in international waters.
DOHSA Is Unfair to Passengers
As matters now stand, a cruise line is the only place in the world where a child or a retired
If you are retired or a child and die on a cruise ship due to the cruise ship’s negligence, the cruise line will consider your life to be worthless under current maritime law.
Your family will face a law called the Death on the High Seas Act, commonly known as “DOHSA.” In 1920, Congress