Princess Cruise Ship Injury + Accident Attorney
On a cruise, many of the aspects of safety and health on board are under the direct control of the cruise line and the ship’s crew. From onboard safety to the food you eat, the cruise ship’s staff and crew are responsible for ensuring you have a good time on your cruise and that you remain safe. If they fail to uphold these standards, you could be seriously injured.
Cruise lines are typically financially liable when this happens, and victims may hold them accountable by filing lawsuits. While victims may sue for accidental injuries due to negligence, they may also file claims for injuries caused by intentional assaults. Damages in these cases often cover victims’ economic and non-economic losses, sometimes even paying them punitive damages to punish defendants. To help ensure your fair recovery, our lawyers can start preparing your case immediately, file it in the appropriate court, and negotiate a settlement or prove liability.
Rivkind Margulies & Rivkind, P.A. can help you with your case when you call our Princess Cruise ship injury and accident lawyers at (305) 204-5369.
Why Passengers Can Sue Princess Cruises for Injuries and Accidents
If you were injured on a Princess Cruise ship, you might be entitled to compensation for your damages. In many cases, victims’ injuries could have been avoided if not for acts or omissions of the cruise ship’s staff and crew or problems with the ship that the cruise line failed to repair. In these kinds of accidents, you may be able to sue the cruise line under a claim that their negligence caused your injuries.
To prove your negligence claim, our attorneys must show the court that the cruise line owed you a duty, that they breached that duty, and that the breach of duty caused your injuries. The duty in your case will depend on the specifics of how you were injured, but generally, cruise lines owe passengers a few different duties on board.
For example, the kitchen staff must serve clean food that is free from foodborne illness. Custodial and maintenance staff must keep the ship clean and clear of tripping and slipping hazards. Bar and restaurant staff must be careful not to overserve passengers alcohol and put them at risk of injury, like falling overboard. Security crew must reasonably help prevent crime and assault on the ship, and staff must not engage in violence or sexual assault against passengers. Furthermore, crewmembers responsible for shore excursions must carefully pilot boats and planes to avoid injuries, and lifeguards and other staff must be trained in CPR to help prevent injuries and drowning in pools and on diving or snorkeling trips.
Other duties are also essential to keeping passengers safe. As a passenger, you have a relationship with the cruise line and its staff, and they must uphold any duties the law places on them. If they fail to do so, you would be entitled to sue them for injuries due to their negligence.
When Are Princess Cruise Passengers at the Greatest Risk of Injury?
Certain factors could increase the risk of accidental or intentional injuries to passengers, such as poor security when a cruise is docked at a foreign port along its route or bad hiring and screening practices for staff.
Cruises have a responsibility to consider their passengers’ safety in virtually all aspects, including their security aboard the vessel. Passengers could be at the greatest risk of being injured due to intentional assaults when cruises have poor hiring practices for crew members or fail to take previous reports of assault seriously. Physical and sexual assault can leave victims very injured and with compensable intangible damages for which a cruise ship company is liable.
Because intentional assaults are one of the top causes of injuries aboard cruises, these ships must take certain steps to deter such conduct and protect their passengers. For example, the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) requires all ships that make port in the United States to have comprehensive video security systems on board. The purpose of these cameras is to deter crimes on cruises, especially acts of violence. Regardless of the cause of your injury, video footage may exist because of CVSSA requirements, and our Princess Cruise ship injury and accident lawyers can work to preserve such footage as soon as possible.
Failure to monitor entry points when ships are docked at ports could enable non-passengers to enter vessels and physically harm passengers. Cruises can be liable for injuries and damages under such circumstances, particularly if was the ship’s inadequate security that allowed the assault to take place.
Recoverable Damages in a Princess Cruise Accident Lawsuit
If you sustained serious injuries on a Princess Cruise, you must prove the damages you suffered before getting the compensation you deserve. In most injury cases, victims can claim three major categories of damages: medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. There may be other additional damages you face in your case, and you should be entitled to full compensation for any harms caused by the cruise line’s negligence. Many damages can be shown by producing medical bills, testimony, and economic estimates of the harm. In some cases, your lawyer might hire a financial expert to help prove your damages and how much they cost.
Medical Expenses
Injured passengers can claim damages for medical expenses to cover any medical bills stemming from their injuries. If you were medically evacuated from the ship and treated at a foreign hospital, this could be quite expensive. You should be entitled to full compensation for the cost of this care, even if complications or mistakes made the care more expensive. Our lawyers can carefully review all medical expenses since the accident and confer with experts to estimate the future care you may need after your case ends.
Lost Wages
If you missed work because of an injury or illness due to cruise ship negligence, you should be entitled to damages for the lost wages you faced. This includes damages for wages you missed while recovering from your injuries and wages that you will lose in the future if the injury is severe enough to stop you from working entirely or severe enough that you must take a lower-paying job. Calculating victims’ lost wages requires a deep understanding of their injuries, workplace responsibilities, and previous incomes, and we can synthesize this information for your case.
Pain and Suffering
Damages for lost wages are “intangible” in that you cannot show someone else the pain and suffering you faced with invoices as you can when proving medical expenses. These damages are also non-economic in that there are no clear costs associated with them that you can prove by producing bills and financial statements. Still, you can claim compensation for these damages using your testimony about your experience. Our lawyers can also use your medical records to show the degree of injury to help prove how much your pain and suffering is worth.
Punitive Damages
Victims might get punitive damages when juries want to hold cruise ship companies accountable for gross negligence. These damages are paid in addition to victims’ compensable damages and are only available in certain instances, and our lawyers can explain if they are on the table in your lawsuit after reviewing your case.
Reporting Injuries and Accidents to Princess Cruises
If you are injured during any accident on a cruise, reporting it to the staff is crucial. This will lead to some documentation of the event and your immediate injuries, which our lawyers may use when preparing your compensation claim.
Accidents and injuries are common on cruises, so ships typically have reporting procedures for passengers to follow. The procedures for reporting a slip and fall would differ dramatically from reporting a missing passenger or fall overboard. Princess Cruises would have to alert the appropriate authorities and launch search and rescue missions for falls overboard, and there would likely be much more documentation of these types of incidents.
In addition to filing a report with the cruise ship itself regarding the accident, go to onboard medical staff for an assessment. If the medical facility aboard the ship does not have the appropriate resources to treat you, you may be evacuated to the nearest foreign hospital capable of handling your injuries. Our attorneys can obtain all relevant documents from the cruise regarding your report of the accident and onboard medical treatment, which may help us lay the foundation for your case.
How to File a Lawsuit Against Princess Cruises for Onboard Accidents and Injuries
If you were injured on a Princess Cruise ship, your case will likely be handled in an American maritime court. Maritime law governs most ships and vessels that fly an American flag or keep their main port in the U.S. When you sue under maritime law, you typically need to use a maritime lawyer, and you may be required to file in federal court. Our lawyers will help you file your case in the right court and against the proper parties so you get compensation for your injuries.
Filing lawsuits against Princess Cruises becomes even more complicated due to stipulations often included in passenger tickets. For example, though the statute of limitations for cruise ship injury lawsuits is typically one year, Princess Cruises can and often does, require passengers to send a written notice of their intent to file a claim within six months. This added step could cause some victims trouble, forcing them to restart the process. This could also put victims at risk of missing the statute of limitations, which is already quite short for these types of lawsuits. We can prevent this by prioritizing your case while you are still physically recovering from cruise ship accident injuries, eliminating the chance of you missing the statute of limitations or failing to send a notice of a claim on time.
Call Our Princess Cruise Injury Attorneys for a Free Legal Consultation
Call Rivkind Margulies & Rivkind’s Princess Cruise ship injury and accident lawyers at (305) 204-5369 to discuss your case for free.
