New details emerged in the death of 18-year-old Anna Kepner aboard the Carnival Horizon. The Daily Mail first reported that the teen was “found wrapped in a blanket, covered over with life jackets and stuffed under a bed.”
The tabloid details how on November 6 Anna complained of feeling unwell during dinner and went
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released limited information as it continues its investigation of the death of 18-year-old Anna Kepner.
One key detail now confirmed is that Anna Kepner passed away on Friday, November 7, at 11:17 a.m., according to the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner. Per The Cruise Globe, the
An 18-year-old passenger died aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Horizon during a 6-night Caribbean voyage from Miami. The woman has been identified as Anna Kepner.
Kepner’s family described their daughter as a joyful, straight-A student who was planning to join the military. She was from Titusville, Florida.
Limited information about the cause or events leading
Last week, a father of four cruising on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship died in Roatan during a stop in that port after he dove into the water from an elevated structure of a pier.
Edmund David Rucker, believed to be 52 years of age, was with his wife and family when the tragic accident
Yesterday, Senator Deb Fisher (R-Neb.) introduced legislation to amend the Death on the High Seas Act (“DOHSA”) to provide a basis for compensation for the pain, suffering and other emotional losses suffered by the surviving family members of loved ones killed at sea.
“Hammer’s Law” is a bill named for Larry and Christy Hammer of
Congress introduced legislation on Wednesday which will strengthen the rights of cruise passengers to seek compensation when cruise lines negligently cause the death of their loved ones on the high seas.
As matters now stand, the statute which governs deaths in international waters, the Death on the High Seas Act ("DOSHA"), bars the recovery of
One of the very first articles I wrote when I started this blog almost eight years ago was about the Death on the High Seas Act. "DOHSA," as it is commonly called, is one of the cruelest and most unfair, if not completely callous, laws imaginable. When an adult child loses a parent on the high seas (defined as outside of U.S. state territorial waters, including the rivers and waters of foreign countries), the law permits, at best, the recovery of only "pecuniary" (financial) losses, such as lost wages (assuming the person is employed). If the person is a retiree, the only damages permitted are the expenses of burying their loved one. Emotional damages such as grief, bereavement, mental anguish, sadness and suffering are prohibited.
The article was titled The Death on the High Seas Act – Screwing American Passengers for 89 Years. It explains how families are not compensated because DOHSA prohibits non-pecuniary damages when their loved ones die on international waters. The cruise lines love DOSHA. Cruise lines have lobbied heavily over the years to keep the ancient maritime law on the books. DOSHA punishes families when they lose a parent, or child, on the high seas, notwithstanding the negligence of a cruise line.
Today, Jill and Kelly Hammer, the daughters of Larry and Cristy Hammer, were reminded of the cruelty of DOSHA when several newspapers covered the latest development regarding their deceased parents, namely that the operator of the La Estrella Amazonica was reportedly grossly negligent and caused the fire which killed the Hammers while they slept in their cabin on La Estrella Amazonica, a river cruise boat on the Peruvian Amazon. It’s a sad story which we wrote about earlier last year – Deadly Amazon River Fire Update: International Expeditions’ La Estrella Amazonica (photos and video).
La Estrella Amazonica has now been renamed by International Expeditions as the Amazon Star.
The Wall Street Journal’s article today, When People Die at Sea, Cruise Operators Often Get a Pass, is "subscription only" although the title suggests that cruise operators are literally getting away with, if not murder, deadly criminal negligence. Another article, published by the World-Herald Bureau, titled Report on Gretna Couple’s Death in Cruise Ship Fire Finds Fault with Ship’s Safety Features, Crew’s Training, reaches the same conclusion.
You can read these articles and make your own mind up about the reportedly unsafe conditions aboard La Estrella Amazonica, the lack of training and qualifications of its crew, and the shifty conduct of the owner and operator of the river cruise boat, International Expeditions, and its president, Van Perry, whose underwriters demanded that Jill and Kelley agree to a gag order (which they rejected) before the cruise operator would meet with them and talk about the circumstances surrounding their parent’s death.
The point to come away with after reading about this terrible ordeal is that this is the exactly the result that the cruise lines want after cruise passengers have been killed. Christina Perez, PR person for the Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA"), was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that if DOHSA was amended to permit fair damages "droves of foreign litigants would "burden an already crowded U.S. judicial system." She also resorted to other scare tactics, saying that "insurance rates for cruise ships would skyrocket, increasing prices and potentially jeopardizing thousands of jobs created by the industry."
This is hardly true. The cruise industry is a rich, billion-dollar business, where it’s CEO’s regularly collect tens of millions of dollars a year, and which registers its cruise ships in foreign countries like the Bahamas and Panama, in order to avoid the taxes, labor laws and safety regulations of the U.S.
Ms. Perez later contradicted herself by claiming that the U.S. Congress did not amend DOHSA to permit additional damages (like it did in aviation cases) because the "maritime industry has a superior safety record."*
CLIA has poured around $30,000,000 into the pockets of Congress in the last decade, according to the Wall Street Journal, to keep the DOHSA legislation which it loves.
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April 13, 2017 Update: Fox News Travel, today, published Cruise ship responsible for couple’s death, report finds which covered the story and discusses the harsh limitations of DOSHA.
April 14, 2017 Update: The U.K.’s Daily Mail, the world largest online newspaper, published Cruise company is finally found responsible for fire that engulfed Amazon tour boat and killed retired Nebraska couple.
May 8, 2017 Update: Fortune: The Cruise Industry’s Priority Is Clear: Profits Over Passenger Safety.
Photo credit: Wall Street Journal
*/The cruise industry, in fact, has experienced far more deaths on its ships than the U.S. commercial aviation fleet in the last decade, although commercial airlines transport over 30 times as many passengers a year. Read our article from several years ago: Cruise Ships: The Deadliest Form of Public Transportation? Continue Reading Cruise Operators Continue to Hide Behind the Death on the High Seas Act
This week several people died during cruises on ships owned by Carnival Corporation. A young seafarer died on the Carnival-owned Cunard Queen Victoria cruise ship. A crew member from the Carnival Conquest was crushed to death at the port of New Orleans. And most tragically, a 6 year-old boy needlessly drowned on the Carnival
The first blog I wrote when I started Cruise Law News three years ago was about the Death On The High Seas Act (“DOHSA”). It was called “Death On The High Seas Act – Screwing American Passengers for 89 Years.”
Under this archaic law, families who have lost a loved one on the
One of the purposes of this blog is to educate the public of dangers of cruising and the legal hurdles passengers face when things go wrong during a cruise.
One of the first issues I felt compelled to write about when I started this blog over two years ago was the Death On The High Seas Act ("DOHSA"). DOSHA
The cruise community has been closely following the sad story of 73 year old grandmother, Janet Richardson, who was dropped into the frigid Artic Sea two weeks ago during a botched transfer between the Ocean Countess cruise ship and an awaiting rescue vessel.
She died this past weekend.
We have posted stories on this sad incident and photographs of the
Today the Senate will debate amending the Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA) to permit the families of the oil workers killed in the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion to recover compensation for their emotional damages for losing their husbands and fathers. The House of Representatives previously voted to amend DOHSA.
We have discussed the inequities in this archaic law which has been
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
Today, the House of Representatives passed a bill – H.R. 5503 (also known as the SPILL Act) – which will amend the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA). H.R. 5503 will permit the widows and children of the oil rig workers killed in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster to be compensated for their grief, mental anguish and suffering due to the deaths
As we suspected, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) is working behind the scenes to derail efforts to amend the Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA).
Yesterday we obtained a copy of a letter (below) sent by CLIA to Congressional representatives in Florida. CLIA is trying to rally opposition against H.R. 5503 which will permit widows and children recover compensation for their grief and
The death of eleven oil rig workers on the Deepwater Horizon has sparked a debate in Congress about repealing the antiquated and inequitable statute, the Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA). This old law dating back to 1920 does not permit surviving wives and children compensation for their grief and bereavement when they lose a loved
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
