Exciting Interview With Italian Maritime Injury Lawyer

Posted by HolzbergLegal | November 27, 2012

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