A huge part of Resort Litigation for Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean concerns passengers. If you are a passenger aboard a cruise ship, pleasure boat, ferry, fishing charter, tour boat, or any other vessel like this, and you are injured as a result of the improper operation of the boat, a defective condition, defective equipment, improper seating or safety equipment, defective gangway, etc., even shoreside excursions or scuba trips, you can bring a claim against the vessel owner for your injuries and damages, including payment of medical bills and expenses, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, pain and suffering, disability, and other losses.

We have handled many cases where our clients were injured on pleasure boats, fishing charters, tour boats and ferries. BE CAREFUL WITH CRUISE SHIPS! They are not your friends. Often your ticket will take away many of your rights, like jury trial and the ability to file suit in a local State court, most of the time making you file in Federal court in Miami within one year of your injury, and requiring you to notify them of the claim within six months of injury.

The cruise ship industry has put in place legal hurdles that shelter operators from big-money lawsuits, making the business highly profitable, while the compensation laws can leave their unwary passenger stranded. For example, the Costa Concordia, which ran aground in early 2012 off the west coast of Italy, killing over 20 people and permanently damaging countless other lives, had a provision in its passengers’ tickets requiring that the forum for all litigation would be in Rome, Italy. Just the location can knock out a just claim.

In 1912, the Titanic passengers and the estates of those who died split less than $100,000, because of an antiquated admiralty rule under the Limitation of Liability Act (Click here and read the story under the quote “The captain went down with the ship, but the chairman escaped with his life – and fortune – intact,” to read more about that disappointing black mark on the cruise ship industry, which did not end when the Titanic sank; that was only the beginning.)

Defendants

Peter Commette and his staff at Peter M. Commette, P.A. are proud to represent our resort-related and cruise ship injured clients against some of the biggest companies, such as:

• Carnival Cruise Lines
• Norwegian Caribbean Cruise Lines (NCL)
• Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCL)
• Celebrity Cruises
• Disney Cruise Line
• Discovery Cruise Line
• Princess Cruise Lines
• Water taxi lines
• Sandals and Beaches
• Disneyworld
• Atlantis
• And many more