This morning, Glenn was quoted in our hometown paper, The Miami Herald, discussing his continued effort to fight against Costa on behalf of survivors of the devastating ship-wreck. And a year after the tragedy, an expensive effort is under way to refloat and remove the Costa Concordia from the coast in Italy where the ship crashed and sunk.
See The Miami Herald for the full article.
This past Sunday, January 13th, marked the anniversary of the Costa Concordia grounding in the waters off Giglio Italy. The 1 year anniversary also represents the ticket contract filing deadline for filing lawsuits. Holzberg Legal has associated with experienced Maritime co-counsel in Italy and will be timely filing all of our clients claims. We are optimistic about exceeding the inadequate offers by the ships owner/operator.
I intend to remain actively involved in all negotiations discovery and litigation in Italy and invite all passengers and crew who have not yet filed claims in Italy under requirements of Italian law. We will be accepting new clients all week and have a brief questionnaire designed to obtain information needed to preserve your claims and toll applicable Italian Navigation Code statutes. We will also consider co-counsel and referral arrangements for lawyers and law firms with passenger and crew clients who have not yet made arrangements in Italy. Valuable rights can be affected or lost by inaction this week!
LET HOLZBERG LEGAL PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS!
Image here
Yesterday, I had a 1 hour tele-conference with a leading Maritime and Personal Injury Lawyer from Northern Italy with reference to our Costa Concordia cases. I had many questions as a US lawyer in a foreign jurisdiction, and I was very pleased by many of the answers I got. There is a viable Civil Tort system with compensatory damages for both economic (wage loss, medical bills and care, etc) and non-economic damages (pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment, mental anguish) awarded, while there is no jury, awards are growing, and there are even venue choices to make the place of filing critical-my potential co-counsel had insights into different courts judges and views about where best to file. Best of all I could remain active in the case and participate in both settlement discussions and court proceedings in a similar fashion to here in the US, with permission of the court through local counsel.
The Lawyer I spoke with has ample Maritime experience and is representing many families in the Costa Concordia grounding (and other shipping disasters) has participated in the Groseto courts criminal proceedings against Captain Schettino and Costa and feels very good about liability-the fault of not only the Captain but the Company as well, important in assessing damages and to reduce sympathy for the strategy of isolating the Captain as sole and sympathetic “victim”.
At Holzberg Legal we are actively looking for more cases to join with our existing 30, for affected passengers and crew members. with the lawyer I spoke with we will have over 75 cases and I think that gives us clout at the negotiating tables or in court.
I learned that Crew can also file claims in Italian Courts and under Italian Law, and according to my Italian colleague will not be required to Arbitrate their claims. Passengers and Crew members should call us at 305-668-6410 or email me at any time at glenn@holzberglegal.com; or to lexi@holzberglegal.com, to determine if we can help file and protect your claim.
Image via Wikimedia
Seeing the week long articles in The Miami Herald on the expansion and future of the Port of Miami made me think about business opportunities. Yesterday’s article confirmed my thinking, in that Miami will be home to 4 new ships starting this week including the Carnival Breeze, the Celebrity Reflection, a Regent, and a first for Miami, a Disney ship. We also are in the running for 1–2 new mega ships in the NCL Epic class and an RCCL Oasis class ship. We will also begin attracting post Panamax class ships with the dredging of government cut to over 50 feet deep, along with reinforced piers, improved train facilities and the new submerged tunnel to handle the increased truck traffic expected from the big increase in containers off-loaded from the new mega ships coming through the Panama Canal, hopefully to Miami.
At Holzberg Legal we will continue to be at the forefront of representing injured passengers, crew, harbor and longshore workers, who will inevitably need experienced legal representation now and in the future. We look to associate as co-counsel, in state Federal court and in US and International Arbitration, and take all inquiries for referral and always honor participation, referral and co-counsel fees consistent with Florida Bar Rules.
Call us at 305-668-6410 or email us at glenn@holzerglegal.com, to speak with me anytime or with my experienced staff: lexi@holzberglegal.com (Lexi Holzberg Kritzer), rick@holzberglegal.com (Rick Cochran), or paralegal Erika, erika@holzberglegal.com.
Join us as we grow with the future!
Glenn J. Holzberg
Image via Wikimedia
Last week, Glenn appeared on The largest News Radio talk show in Canada, The Jim Richards Show, on the sinking of the HMS Bounty during Hurricane Sandy at sea off Virginia.
Listen here:
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.
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).
(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.
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.
“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.
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.
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}
