Can You Sue if You Were Injured Abroad?
Taking a cruise is a great way to travel abroad in style. While cruises are typically great vacations, docking at foreign ports and enabling passengers to explore, the risk of injury is present. If you were hurt abroad, whether on the ship or during a land excursion, would you be able to file a lawsuit, and if so, against whom?
Cruises bear liability for many accidents and injuries to passengers, including some that occur on foreign land during excursions. Cruises that operate excursions or put passengers under the assumption that they do could be liable for the injuries passengers sustain from negligence or recklessness. The same is true for incidents that occur on board, including intentional assaults from crew members or other passengers, meaning you can likely sue and get damages after being injured abroad on a cruise.
Call (305) 204-5369 to discuss your case for free with the cruise ship injury lawyers at Rivkind Margulies & Rivkind.
Who Can You Sue After Being Injured Abroad?
When traveling abroad on a cruise ship, there is the risk of injury on land and at sea. While you may spend much of your time on the ship itself, you might also partake in land excursions when docked at foreign ports. In either location, passengers could suffer injuries that lead to costly damages. Even when hurt on land, the cruise ship could be responsible for paying your damages, which our attorneys can confirm when reviewing your case.
Suing for Injuries Suffered at Sea on Cruise Ships
For injuries due to negligence on cruises, the cruise ship company would likely be liable. Common causes of injury include slip and falls from slick decks, falls overboard or onto lower decks because of faulty guardrails or crew members overserving passengers, and intentional assaults from crew members and due to negligent security. Drowning accidents in pools on ship decks are also common and a top risk of fatalities on cruises. More often than not, cruise ship injuries can be traced back to someone’s negligent, reckless, or intentional conduct, which our attorneys can verify after taking on your case.
Even if someone directly injured you, like during an intentional assault, the cruise ship might share liability for failure to safeguard you from such attacks adequately. Keeping crew members on staff who have assaulted passengers before or hiring crew members without running background checks for passengers’ safety could also make cruises liable for injuries suffered during assaults. Our cruise ship injury lawyers can help victims preserve evidence after onboard accidents, such as by obtaining video footage from security cameras on the ship.
In addition to injuries, contracting illnesses on cruises could generate consequential damages for victims, and cruise ships might be liable if they fail to quarantine affected passengers or crew members, fail to warn passengers of an outbreak, or cause the outbreak through unsafe food handling practices in kitchens.
Suing for Injuries Suffered During Land Excursions in Foreign Countries
Whenever cruises dock at foreign ports, they typically offer land excursion opportunities to passengers. On these excursions, passengers could be injured during motor vehicle accidents or drowning accidents, suffering harms that warrant medical attention and make them incur expensive damages. Excursion companies using defective equipment crucial to participants’ safety, such as harnesses or personal flotation devices, could seriously endanger and injure participants.
At first, victims may be unsure who could be liable for their injuries, and if that may include the cruise ship company itself, despite the accident happening on land. For example, if the cruise ship company recommended a land excursion company without properly vetting it, and a passenger suffered injuries, they could be liable. Furthermore, not warning passengers of the known dangers of a particular excursion or activity or making it seem as though the cruise was operating the excursion when it was not could create liability for cruises. And, if the cruise profits from the excursion as a joint venture between it and the excursion company, you may be able to file a lawsuit against the cruise ship company for personal injuries suffered abroad on land.
To confirm liability, our lawyers will look further into the cruise’s advertising of the excursion, whether or not passengers were given the appropriate warnings of possible risks, such as dehydration, and if the cruise ship profits from the excursion activity in a meaningful way.
Documenting Injuries Sustained Abroad for Your Lawsuit
When hurt on a cruise ship or during an excursion while the ship is docked at a foreign port, documenting your immediate injuries will be crucial to the success of your future lawsuit. Cruise ships have medical facilities passengers can rely on in these instances, so do not think you have to wait until the ship docks or you return home to get assessed for a possible fracture or other injury.
However, if you are hurt on foreign land during an excursion, you might be taken by emergency services to a local hospital. This could lead to more comprehensive care than what might be available on a cruise ship, which might have limited access to equipment and treatment materials. If this happens to you, we can help you obtain medical records from foreign hospitals after your return home so we can verify how your injuries presented immediately after the accident.
For injuries suffered at sea that onboard medical facilities are unable to adequately treat, passengers may be medically evacuated to nearby foreign hospitals for the care they require. This could be the case when passengers fall onto lower decks and sustain catastrophic neck and spine injuries, as they might need surgery right away, which cannot be performed on a cruise.
While some victims may have to remain in foreign hospitals for some time until they are well enough to go home, others’ injuries permit them to travel sooner. Getting home and resuming your medical care with physicians in your area will be important, as this will further confirm your injuries and their cost to treat, leading to evidence we can use for your lawsuit against the liable cruise ship company.
Call Our Lawyers About Your Cruise Ship Injury Now
Call (305) 204-5369 to get a confidential and free case analysis from the cruise ship injury lawyers at Rivkind Margulies & Rivkind.
