Prior Incidents in the Royal Caribbean Catacombs Lounge

By HolzbergLegal | Published February 7, 2012


I read with great interest the sad story of the passenger, Massachusetts Resident, Barbara Wood, who died falling down the stairway in the Catacombs Lounge on Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas this past week. I was shocked to read this since we had an almost identical case several years ago, after the Liberty’s first sail. Fortunately our client did not die but suffered severe traumatic brain injuries. We have extensive photographic history, discovery, including our own engineer’s reports and measurements regarding how dangerous these stairs actually are. The photographs seen on my friend, colleague, and frequent co-counsel, Jim Walker’s blog, cruise law news, brought back the memories and lessons of this case.

Photo credit: skinnie minnie / Flickr page // Found on cruiselawnews.com

The stairs are visually deceptive, in my opinion, and that of our engineer, and in fact, when leaving the darkened Catacombs Lounge at night (also known, ironically, as The Crypt), coming from cloaking darkness to this sea glass distortion of the steps, and severe front-to-back depth measurements of the first few stairs, makes this a trap waiting to ensnare an unknowing happy passenger.

If anybody has any information on this incident or similar incidents, as well as the family members of the victim or witnesses, please call us. This prior notice of our claim, may prove a key element of any future litigation involving the Wood family.

Posted in Royal Caribbean, Stairs, Traumatic Brain Injuries | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment


Costa Concordia Deadlines, Questions & Answers You Need To Know

By HolzbergLegal | Published February 6, 2012


Pier Paolo Cito/AP Photo

This has been an eventful week for us.  We have been entertaining calls from many Costa Concordia victims of the January 13th, near-sinking.  We have spoken to clients and potential clients from all over the world.  We have identified many common questions that comes up frequently in our discussions.  I will attempt to answer the most common here.

 

(1) The most important immediate concern is the thirty day notice provision contained in the Costa Ticket Terms & Conditions – in order to preserve your property damage claim you must give Costa notice, including a statement of particulars, of your property damage claims on or before February 12th, 2012, 30 days from the disaster.  Since that date falls on Sunday, we will be filing our client’s claims by this Friday, February 10th.  We urge you all to do the same.

(2) The next significant deadlines require a notice of personal injury or wrongful death claims within 185 days of the date of the disaster (by July 15th, 2012, also on a Sunday, therefore we will have our client’s notices sent on or before Friday, July 13th, 2012).

  1. Finally, you must file your lawsuit within one year of the date of the disaster, on or before January 13th, 2013.

(3) The choice of venue within which to file suit is the next most common question. Again the Terms & Conditions of the Costa ticket require suit in Genoa, Italy and require application of Italian Law.  We are aware of the two lawsuits that have been filed in Illinois in Federal Court and in state court in Miami-Dade County, Florida.  We have reviewed the state court complaint, Scimone v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. and Costa Crociere, S.p.A.  We believe that this suit was improperly filed in state court in Dade county and will be dismissed. We anticipate, based upon our experience in Miami-Dade state court, that this dismissal will occur by approximately May or June of this year.  Accordingly, our advice to our clients has been one of patience, since we believe that we will know the outcome of the State, and likely Federal case, before the July 15th personal injury notice deadline and certainly well before the January 13th, 2013 lawsuit deadline.  We will better know the course of action to take on behalf of our clients, however it is my anticipation that we will be filing our lawsuits in Italy.  We have already begun the process of identifying Italian law firms with which to associate for these purposes.  However, as experience Maritime and Personal Injury trial lawyers, we will stay heavily involved in the process and would prefer to take the lead in litigation and discovery with the assistance of Italian counsel.

(4) Any reputable American law firm will charge fees on a contingency fee basis.  You should not expect to pay any fees in advance, and while attorneys may ask for a retainer fee, which is not illegal, it is not the norm.  The more clients that we sign up, the greater ability we have to divide related costs and expenses, which will also only be charged to clients upon successful resolution of the case, and from the recovery.  The greater number of clients that retain us, the less proportionate costs will be to you.

(5) Our firm has made, I believe, a unique offer to our clients, which will be available to anyone who has retained our firm.  Since Costa has offered 11,000 (EURO) for property damage and incidental expense claims such as hotel transportation, etc., which according to Costa, you can obtain without an attorney, our contingency fee will only be based upon any recovery exceeding 11,000 (EURO), approximately $14,600.  We think that under these circumstances, that is the right thing to do.

 

We are experienced Maritime lawyers.  We regularly pursue injury and wrongful death claims against all of the major cruise lines, who require suit in Federal court in Miami-Dade County, Florida; Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Norwegian, Costa, and others.  We represent both passengers and crew member, who’s rights will be based upon their employment and collective bargaining agreements, and will more likely be arbitrated.  We have been speaking to clients in the United States, United Kingdom (England), Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Macedonia, Italy, France, Peru, and many more. We urge you to consider all of your options before hiring any lawyer and filing any lawsuits, and we especially urge considering our strategy, before rushing into suit.  We’ll be happy to represent any passenger or crew-member, injured, or who’s loved ones perished as a result of this incident, and are available to answer any questions.

You may use our contact form or e-mail us at glenn@holzberglegal.com and/or lexi@holzberglegal.com, or call us at (305) 668-6410.

 

 

Posted in Costa, Disasters, Maritime Death, Passenger Rights | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment


Cruise Ship Runs Aground Off Coast of Italy – 6 Dead, 69 Missing

By HolzbergLegal | Published January 14, 2012


Only hours ago, a Costa cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Tuscany and is now sinking.

The massive Costa Concordia – which was carrying more than 4,000 people (passengers and crew) – took on more water than it could handle through a 160-foot gash and the ship quickly listed to its side.  Because one side of the ship rapidly submerged under water, nearly half of the life boats were rendered useless.

Currently, six people have been confirmed dead and another 69 are still missing, potentially lost on the capsized ship.

The 114,500-ton vessel’s captain, Francesco Schettino, was arrested and charged with manslaughter and leaving his post.  According to reports, the captain of the luxury cruise liner abandoned ship after it that ran aground while countless people remained stranded on the sinking boat.

“They were at dinner at the time, and they just heard a bang and felt a jolt and all of a sudden the ship tilted,” said Phyllis Papa of Wallingford, Connecticut, whose sister and niece were aboard the luxury liner.

“There was a lot of chaos no one knew what to do or where to go, and they couldn’t walk because it was tilting so bad,” Papa said. “Everyone was screaming. They thought they were going to die.”

Officials at the United States Embassy in Rome said all of the Americans onboard the ill-fated ship were accounted for.

“They had nothing but their clothes on, they lost everything,” said Papa, who spoke to her sister Maria and niece, Melissa Goduti, in the hours after their brush with a watery grave. “They watched it sink.”

Carrying 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew members, the Costa Concordia was on its usual weekly route across the Mediterranean Sea, which departed from Civitavecchia – the port of Rome – only three hours before disaster struck.

The Costa Concordia is now the largest vessel ever to sink.  Notably, this horrific tragedy comes just months before the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
Posted in Costa | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment


Cruise Ships Failing To Properly Investigate Disappearances

By HolzbergLegal | Published November 3, 2011


News of the recent disappearance of crewmember Rebecca Coriam, 24, from a Disney ship, while sailing off the coast of Mexico, has prompted a review of a change in law to allow UK authorities to investigate missing British nationals on vessels registered abroad.  According to BBC news, Bahamian police did not investigate for 3 days, prompting Stephen Mosley, City of Chester, Minister of Parliament, to question, “how could we have allowed this to happen to a British citizen?”

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence on cruise ships. Unknown to many is the foggy role of the agencies responsible to investigate these at-sea crimes (shifting between local US police, the FBI, local foreign authorities, or Bahamian police – i.e., typically due to the registry of the vessel.) The sad result is a delay in investigation, which potentially harms the value of evidence, the availability of witnesses, and the quality of the investigation.  Ms. Coriam’s family may never learn the truth due to this delayed and possibly botched investigation.

Holzberg Legal recently arbitrated a case involving a foreign seaman who was repeatedly abused and beaten by fellow seaman during the early morning hours on a Royal Caribbean ship in Alaskan waters; we believe that the delayed response, and involving Alaskan police and the FBI, who relied heavily on the shipboard investigation of the Staff Captain, doomed the investigation to failure, with no charges ever being filed against the attackers.  We believe that we identified the attacker, but will never know due to shoddy investigation.  Fortunately, we are awaiting an arbitration award in our Bosnian seaman client’s favor, and will report soon when obtained.

At a time when incidents of sexual assault, rape, violence, and disappearances continue, United States laws, if anything, are becoming less favorable to claimants, certainly towards crewmembers such as Rebecca Coriam and her family. Congress is currently considering a bill, which will virtually eliminate rights of foreign seaman to file suit or arbitrate in the US and apply US law, despite over 100 years of precedent to be discussed in future posts.

 

 

Posted in Crew Member Rights, Disappearances, Royal Caribbean | Leave a comment


Hello, Global World!

By HolzbergLegal | Published October 19, 2011


Hello, Global World!  My name is Glenn J. Holzberg.  I am a maritime and personal injury lawyer in Miami, Florida, who this week, also christens our new website, Global Home – the host of Holzberglegal.com.  We tried to smash a champagne bottle against a hull in cyberspace but oddly we missed.  For those who don’t understand this tradition, it is customary for a shipowner, including cruise lines, inaugurating a new ship to have a ceremony before the ship is about to be launched for the first time by smashing a bottle of champagne against the hull.  If the bottle doesn’t smash, it’s said to be bad luck.  See for example, one of my favorite movies, K-19, The Widowmaker, when the Russian crew stood aghast as the bottle didn’t shatter and they all muttered, “We’re cursed.”  Alas, I now have no choice but to smash a bottle of my office wall, or my blog too will be cursed.

You may ask, why another blog about cruise law and the maritime industry, from a passenger and crew perspective?  My good friend, fine Maritime lawyer, and colleague, Jim Walker, already writes the incredible Cruise Law News, which just celebrated it’s two year anniversary.  As you can see how quickly I can turn on a dime, it took me only two years to catch up, though I must say, with Jim’s encouragement.  So why another blog?

I have always considered myself, above all, a teacher and mentor who secretly desires to be the second most popular law professor (too much pressure being number one, and no room for growth) on a great campus where the young kids line up like following the pied piper to catch bits of my knowledge.    Today’s internet is the largest college campus in the history of the world, so here I am.  This has been a quiet week in the maritime business, from an outsider’s perspective. I was recently struck by The MS Nordlys fire killing two crewmen in its engine room – not by what happened but by how the news surrounding the story was handled.  Both Norway’s Hurtigruten Line and investigating police quickly announced suspicion of an onboard explosion and were apparently candid about the number of injured and dead.  “Our suspicion is that there was an explosion in the machine room,”  local fire chief Skovly announced.

Contrast that with the attitude and information that we generally obtain in our typical cases – secrecy, concealment, denials, and stories plainly contrary to what our own clients and potential clients tell us.  My own recent experience with the severe storm damage on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Brilliance of the Seas in December 2010 off the coast of Egypt, and the listing damage to the Carnival Ecstasy in the Gulf of Mexico on April 21, 2010, suggests otherwise.   Clients and other passengers describe a nightmarish situation, while the cruise line’s initial response is to minimize the damage, and exert incredible spin control, which would make any political operative proud.  In future posts, there are many things I’d like to share with you: legislative efforts or lack thereof to clean up some of the most abusive laws harming passenger and crew member’s interests in pursuing legitimate injury and death claims – or example, the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), which severely limits survivor’s recovery for pain and suffering, loss of a spouse or parent, and what the law refers to as non-economic damages; the shameful case of Carnival v. Carlisle, which effectively allows ship’s doctors and nurses to commit some of the worst acts of medical malpractice with virtual impunity; and the current hot-topic in the South Florida Maritime Bar, the continuing deterioration of the rights of crewmembers to pursue their claims in court, by a jury trial, in the United States, and to apply U.S. General Maritime Law to their claims (the cruise line desired alternative, Arbitration, and its twisted interpretations which are having a chilling effect on crewmember’s rights against which a small handful of South Florida Maritime lawyers are fighting back.)

On a lighter note, there is my story about barging into the Maritime and Cruise ship Bar in South Florida from a Personal Injury Background, with a love for cruising and travel, and a fascination for this obviously growing industry which will be a topic of many future discussions.  Anyone remember the tiny articles in the back of magazines – “Draw this Cat” to enter into Art School?  If you have the right stuff, “Draw this cruise ship”, anyone?   (My daughter and associate attorney, a frequent blogger in her own world, Glitterandpearls.com, suggests this is a terrible joke.  I’m keeping it!)

More to come in the near future …  I am excited about this blog and its prospects.  See you soon and I hope the comments, both positive and negative, flow freely, since that free-flow is the beauty of the internet.  I hereby christen thee, the Holzberg Legal Blog.  Bon voyage!

(Anyone Hear the smashing champagne bottle against the hull??).

{Images via Cruise Law News & Cruiseline History}

Posted in About | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment


Recognizing Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries in Auto and Slip and Fall Cases

By HolzbergLegal | Published October 18, 2011


The Initial Client Interview will reveal your first and best clues.
Always conduct your initial interview yourself. Mild traumatic brain injuries are subtle in presentation. Your client appears normal, and sounds and responds appropriately. This is the worst enemy of recognition. Begin with their first memories before the incident- most MTBI victims will have intact memories of the events leading up to the head injury (retrograde amnesia) because in most cases more serious head injuries affect these memories. If memory is more impaired after the incident (anterograde amnesia) you have your first clue. Now take a thorough history of symptoms right after the impact as follows: a) Loss of consciousness- any, including confusion, blacking out, no memory of conversations with others -though documented- “obtunded”; b) nausea c) vomiting; d) vision issues- blurry vision, double vision, floaters; e) white hot burning sensation in head; f) headaches; g) dizziness; h) disorientation; i) contusion, bleeding to head scalp, face, etc (facial impact can= MTBI).

Careful review of all Medical Records from the initial physical impact is Essential to finding your best evidence.
Obtain all medical and law enforcement records and read them yourself. Your looking for evidence of symptoms- see list above, and don’t rely upon admission summaries or initial intake at ER. Read EMS records- though these often contain misinformation/dissonance. For example- AAOX3 is meaningless in MTBI cases – it’s a defense argument, possibly of significance in Severe or Moderate Brian injuries with “complications”; skull Fracture, brain bleed. Don’t get hung up on a 15/15 Glascow coma scale-those are what they say -looking for coma. They don’t negate MTBI. I have found doctors missing contusions on back of scalp which an nurse caught and reported in nurses notes -with evidence of blood and clean up- missed in ER. Nurses report vomiting later (x2-3 etc). look for different reports of LOC- sometimes a client will remember he/she lost consciousness other times(to other reporters will FORGET). the same is true for vision problems. Read initial doctor visits for next clues.

You become best Medical Advocate and manage Referrals for proper medical and psychological care.
As you begin talking to client and spouse, significant other, parent, children (especially if older client) you will begin to see a pattern of memory and concentration problems, focus difficulties, irritability, aggressiveness, personality and behavior changes, mood alterations, and problems at work at home and in social relationships. The spouse or closest loved one is the best reporter of this. I first ask my client these (very) direct questions , and then ask if I can separately interview spouse, etc. You will get some positive responses from client but they often either don’t recognize the changes or are covering then for fear of reprisal or confrontation(esp. at work). Once confirmed this is the time to begin the trio of ESSENTIAL MEDICAL CARE: 1)NEUROLOGIST -who gets MTBI- be careful in selection- a bad choice can kill your case; 2) NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST- A MUST FOR FINDING EVIDENCE OF COGNITIVE CHANGES and to do a thorough evaluation; 3) PSYCHOLOGIST- if signs of depression.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING
MOST Neuropsychologists will tell you that most cases of MTBI with sequela do not fully develop for 12-18 months after initial injury. It is probably best to not prematurely arrange for a neuropsychological battery until then. However you should consult with your neuropsychologist early in the case and develop a game plan. Likewise a good radiologist neuro radiologist can greatly assist your case and defeat the defense argument that a lack of positive radiological findings are indicative of no Brain Injury-NONSENSE- but having better testing than the standard T1 weighted MRI’s can find evidence of brain injuries where none was found before. PT scans, SPECT scans and T3 weighted MRI’s (MRA’s) are better and of course more expensive but can show hard to rebut evidence. These can be done earlier and give medical support to justify referral to the Neuropsychologist. Pay attention to these medical hand offs,they are invaluable to show the progressive nature of these pernicious injuries.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment