Trial News

In the wake of COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships that continued operating after potential coronavirus exposures on board, passengers and crew members have filed the first wave of negligence lawsuits against cruise lines, including Princess Cruise Lines, Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Crociere, and Celebrity Cruises. In the various complaints, the plaintiffs allege a similar set of facts—that the defendants knew or should have known about the heightened risk of COVID-19 exposure to their passengers but failed to inform them of that risk and allowed the cruises to proceed without establishing proper medical screening protocols or adequately responding to likely infections on board once the cruises were underway.

One set of litigation involves the Grand Princess ship, which originally left San Francisco on Feb. 11. Ten days later, on Feb. 21, it returned to port after a roundtrip cruise to the Mexican Riviera with at least one passenger on board who displayed COVID-19 symptoms and sought medical treatment during the cruise. Sixty-two passengers and more than 1,000 crew members from the Mexico cruise remained on the vessel, and thousands of new passengers were allowed to embark without any communication from the defendants about a potential COVID-19 exposure on the ship. That same day, the Grand Princess departed for a roundtrip cruise to Hawaii.

A few days later, while the ship was already at sea, passengers from the Mexico cruise were informed of their potential exposure during that trip. The new passengers aboard the Grand Princess did not receive the same notification. The cruise was cut short on March 4, and the ship returned to San Francisco, where it was forced to wait at sea for several days due to increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases on board and the news that a passenger from the Mexico cruise had died. The ship eventually docked in Oakland, Calif., where passengers were screened and placed in quarantine at Travis Air Force Base. (See, e.g., Gleason v. Princess Cruise Lines Ltd., No. 2:20-cv-02328 (C.D. Cal. filed Mar. 11, 2020); Dalton v. Princess Cruise Lines Ltd., No. 2:20-cv-02458-GW-PJW (C.D. Cal. filed Mar. 13, 2020); Austin v. Princess Cruise Lines Ltd., No. 2:20-cv-02531 (C.D. Cal. filed Mar. 17, 2020); and Archer v. Carnival Corp., No. 3:20-cv-02381 (N.D. Cal. filed Apr. 8, 2020).)

Plaintiffs in individual lawsuits and at least one putative class action complaint filed in California federal courts allege that the defendant acted negligently when it failed to inform its passengers about a potential COVID-19 patient who disembarked from the ship the day before it set off for Hawaii and when it allowed the trip to proceed even though it was aware of the risk to passengers. The plaintiffs also allege that the ship delayed instituting social distancing and quarantine protocols until nearly two weeks after it sailed from San Francisco and that it failed to follow adequate disinfecting procedures before and during the cruise.

Plaintiffs also cited a COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess, one of the defendants’ ships, while it was docked in Yokohama, Japan, in early February as a warning at the time of the potential for a similar situation on other vessels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had issued a statement in response to the Diamond Princess outbreak that the situation “highlight[ed] the high burden of infection on the ship and potential for ongoing risk.”

A putative class action filed in Florida federal court involving a different ship and defendant, the Costa Luminosa operated by Costa Crociere, details a similar set of facts and allegedly negligent failures involving a transatlantic cruise that departed on March 5. (Turner v. Costa Crociere S.P.A., No. 1:20-cv-21481-KMM (S.D. Fla. filed Apr. 7, 2020).) On the preceding voyage, which ran from Feb. 29 through March 5, an Italian passenger exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms had been evacuated from the ship and later died.

Despite knowing about this exposure, the defendant allowed a new group of passengers to board the Costa Luminosa on March 5, the same day it returned to port. The class action complaint alleges that the defendant did not properly sanitize the ship before allowing the new passengers to board, that it did not have medical personnel examining new passengers for COVID-19 symptoms as they were boarding, and that it failed to inform passengers of the previous medical evacuation of the Italian passenger. The cruise proceeded, and an outbreak occurred while the vessel was at sea. An Italian couple was hospitalized while the ship was docked in Puerto Rico just three days after leaving Florida. Both passengers later tested positive for COVID-19.

The ship continued on its journey, and passengers were not informed of this potential exposure until a week later, nor were they told that the CDC had issued guidance not to travel by cruise ship when they had their last opportunity to leave the ship in Puerto Rico. Passengers also were not instructed to quarantine in their rooms until a week after the Italian couple left the ship. Several international ports denied entry to the Costa Luminosa, and it eventually docked in Marseille, France. The complaint alleges that passengers were not provided protective equipment or instructed to maintain social distance during the disembarkation process.

Also in Florida federal court, the first putative class action has been filed on behalf of crew members who contracted or were at heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19. Involving a potential class of thousands of crew members working for Celebrity Cruises, the complaint asserts claims under the Jones Act for negligence and unseaworthiness and failure to pay maintenance and cure under general maritime law. (Nedeltcheva v. Celebrity Cruises Inc., No. 1:20-cv-21569-UU (S.D. Fla. filed Apr. 14, 2020).)

San Francisco attorney Elizabeth Cabraser, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the class action involving the Grand Princess, said, “With adequate information, passengers could have made informed decisions about their health and their families’ health. Instead, because of the defendants’ choices, the passengers were led unknowingly onto a ship where they would be unavoidably mingling in close quarters with over 1,000 other people already exposed to and potentially infected with COVID-19.”

On March 14, the CDC ordered cruise lines to stop sailing for 100 days, pursuant to the Public Health Service Act. The agency extended the order on April 9.

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