No Litigation in Carnival Splendor Disaster

By Terry Green
Nov 14 2010

The passengers on board the disabled Carnival Splendor cruise ship are likely back to their normal lives today after landing in San Diego.

New information has come to light related to the Carnival Splendor incident. While there were rumblings that many of the passengers would sue the cruise line once they were on dry land, that has all but died at the hands of the contract that was signed by all cruisers.

MSNBC obtained a copy of the contract that all passengers must sign before boarding one of Carnival’s cruise ships. The contract is specifically worded to prevent lawsuits that are based on unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstances that take place while the passenger is on board the ship.

However, most of the passengers are not even thinking about suing the cruise line now that they are back home. The cruise line refunded their money for the entire cruise before they left San Diego, offered each of them a voucher for another cruise at a later date and offered to reimburse all travel expenses for the return to their homes.

According to several lawyers that were queried on the incident, Carnival is virtually immune from legal action in the case. Not only do they have iron clad contracts signed by each of the passengers, they based the cruise out of Miami.

The entire state of Florida is well-known for being less than receptive to such lawsuits.

Carnival has started the process of investigating the cause of the engine room fire that disabled the ship which is said to take weeks to complete.