Costa class action seeking $ 160k per passenger

[CCJack]

My personal opinion is this is a lot of money for the uninjured passengers who got off the ship. I do not think the world will be a better place by forcing carnival or a division of carnival out of business. Of course I feel for the victims and their families and that is a different story.

[Desertbelle]

I disagree, $160k seems about right for an incident that was brought about by an employee's bad judgement...and there is still discussions about whether or not this ship's electrical system was faulty. I can only imagine what these people went through, and some of them did lose friends and loved ones. I imagine many of these people are still having nightmares.

[ryano]

That would roughly be the amount of a new ship build if my math is correct.

 

Would that really force Costa out of business?

 

Also, would insurance cover this? Or does it come straight from the company itself?

 

Just asking :)

[orville99]

Just remember that if the plaintiffs prevail in a class action, the attorneys will get between 30-50% of the ultimate judgement, so the pax will only end up with $5-10K more than they would have received if no action had been taken:(

[CCJack]

Oh, yes, the attorneys will get a bunch... so maybe $100k per passenger is not out of line.

 

Not sure about insurance. Many big corporations are self insured, which basically means no insurance.

[Desertbelle]

I read somewhere they had insurance but the deductible was something like $30 million. I don't have time to research the exact amount but it was in one of the stories I read the first couple of days.

[alaskawdw12]

The Costa company is 100% at fault for everything that happened after the terrible things the captain did. The complete mess on board was really what killed people. Had Costa been more strict about making sure their staff knew exactly what to do in case of emergency - lives would have been spared. The fact that the staff were pretty much clueless even to how to work the lifeboats is completely Costa's fault.

 

Furthermore, Costa was disgusting with how they handled the survivors! Offering no help in getting clothing or a flight home. If you read what passengers say, they keep on repeating that they were completely blown away by the lack of help they were getting fromn Costa.

 

Even those who are not injured lost all of the things they brought onboard, for many I'm sure this was a vacation they had planned for a very very long time, possibly taking the only vacation they could from work to go on this trip, and have been scarred for life!

 

So, no, I don't think it's too much to ask, and I don't feel bad for a company that didn't even have the decendy to take care of the aftermath of this disaster.

[GXmanDC]

The plaintiffs attorneys will bring the suit on contingency so they will get a cut of any judgement or settlement. The attorneys will also front all of the litigation costs, which will be high. They could get 30-50%, but no one here knows the number. A judge can also limit the fees.

 

There is an enormous hurdle to get the suit into a US court. They'll have to convince a judge to throw out the contract each passenger signed when he/she purchased the ticket.

 

Most companies would seek reimbursement from their insurers. There are dozens of types of insurance out there. As someone stated it was reported that Carnival Corp had a $30M deductible for the incident.

 

This is not going to put Carnival out of business. They are a huge corporation.. I image the settlement/judgement would be structured so the corporation can book it over a number of years.

 

As far as if it is enough or too much? I don't know. My first reaction was people should be happy they are alive. But I was not on board and I don't know what it is like to live through the situation. It was a preventable disaster. I guess that is a question for the jury.

[CCJack]

Yes well said. I don't know what the passengers experienced, but also I don't think any one knows who is at fault yet. There is still a lot of investigation yet to be done.

[time4u2go]

The plaintiffs attorneys will bring the suit on contingency so they will get a cut of any judgement or settlement. The attorneys will also front all of the litigation costs, which will be high. They could get 30-50%, but no one here knows the number. A judge can also limit the fees.

 

There is an enormous hurdle to get the suit into a US court. They'll have to convince a judge to throw out the contract each passenger signed when he/she purchased the ticket.

 

Most companies would seek reimbursement from their insurers. There are dozens of types of insurance out there. As someone stated it was reported that Carnival Corp had a $30M deductible for the incident.

 

This is not going to put Carnival out of business. They are a huge corporation.. I image the settlement/judgement would be structured so the corporation can book it over a number of years.

 

As far as if it is enough or too much? I don't know. My first reaction was people should be happy they are alive. But I was not on board and I don't know what it is like to live through the situation. It was a preventable disaster. I guess that is a question for the jury.

I'm just curious...why would they want to get it into a US court?

[Artemis908]

The Costa company is 100% at fault for everything that happened after the terrible things the captain did. The complete mess on board was really what killed people. Had Costa been more strict about making sure their staff knew exactly what to do in case of emergency - lives would have been spared. The fact that the staff were pretty much clueless even to how to work the lifeboats is completely Costa's fault.

 

Furthermore, Costa was disgusting with how they handled the survivors! Offering no help in getting clothing or a flight home. If you read what passengers say, they keep on repeating that they were completely blown away by the lack of help they were getting fromn Costa.

 

Even those who are not injured lost all of the things they brought onboard, for many I'm sure this was a vacation they had planned for a very very long time, possibly taking the only vacation they could from work to go on this trip, and have been scarred for life!

 

So, no, I don't think it's too much to ask, and I don't feel bad for a company that didn't even have the decendy to take care of the aftermath of this disaster.

 

Completely agree. Costa handled this poorly, and that's nothing something I read or watched on the news, it's things I have heard from real passengers right on these boards. Costa literally left them without anything while their embassy had to take care of them and help them get home. The fact that the THREE head officers on this ship happened to "trip" onto a lifeboat and get away is sickening. If any of the officers had just began evacuation early on instead of trying to cover up the captain's mistake, no one would have died and this would have been a completely different story. I can believe in one person's human error, but the fact that the 2nd and 3rd officers were just as happy to hop off the ship and let the others fend for themselves seems like this is more than just the captain and his errors.

[cruzsnooze]

I don't think it's enough. Some people might have lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, cash, luggage, passports , hell my coach handbag would be a big loss as would other designer things many people lost. and the other things left behind. The hassle of replacing ones credits cards, drivers license, keys, cell phones, laptops that may have been in their safe and left behind. How do you put a number to these losses and the time and frustration to sort it all out. This was not a natural disaster like a rogue wave but a Captain who drove the ship like a Ferrari according to reports, for his own entertainment.

[SB9]

I thought I read somehwere there was limit that the passengers could get in lawsuit?

 

More than likely it will be either tied up in the courts for years or they will do a settlement with the passengers that they will not be allowed to talk about.

[TonyFred]

Each passenger should also get one free punch at the Captain.

[klingoncruiser]

Ouch..... however... serves them right. That is why you pay insurance though. :rolleyes:

[pcur]

I thought I read somehwere there was limit that the passengers could get in lawsuit?

 

More than likely it will be either tied up in the courts for years or they will do a settlement with the passengers that they will not be allowed to talk about.

 

That's under Italian maritime law. They are trying to file an international class action lawsuit in the U.S.

 

I predict Costa will settle out of court for less than the orginal asking settlement per passenger. They won't want to drag out the horrific media attention they are getting. They have serious damage control to do now for their brand.

[bigeagle12]

Each passenger should also get one free punch at the Captain.

 

I would even give up the $160,000 for that opportunity :D

[Mark_K]

I disagree, $160k seems about right for an incident that was brought about by an employee's bad judgement...and there is still discussions about whether or not this ship's electrical system was faulty. I can only imagine what these people went through, and some of them did lose friends and loved ones. I imagine many of these people are still having nightmares.

$160K may be about right for someone who lost a loved one, but for the average person who only experienced an evacuation from a sinking ship, and didn't lose a loved one or get seriously injured, it seems excessive to me.

[Icruzthere4Iam]

Any lawsuit and or settlement is nothing more than a way for ambulance chasers to line their pockets while hiding behind the passengers and or "public safety". What is a judgement going to do to protect anyone in the future? Pretty sure every captain of every vessel in the world knows not to smash into things with their ship. This guy did something stupid and messed up big time. Having a court say hey don't smash your ship into things doesn't change a thing. And paying lawyers a bunch of money doesn't change a thing either.

 

The fact that so many on here are bashing the crew, who managed to safely evacuate over 4,000 people, amazes me. Was it chaotic? I would guess absolutely it was. The above mentioned captain had smashed the ship into a rock and it was sinking, at night. Is it tragic that some people died? Absolutely. Is it a credit to the staff and crew that it was not far, far worse? Absolutely! No one on these boards knows the facts of this case. The media are idiots and will report anything they can find, overhear, make up etc. The only things we do know with certainty is the captain managed to smash into a rock, the boat sank and over 99% of the passengers and crew survived.

[BeachChik]

$160K may be about right for someone who lost a loved one, but for the average person who only experienced an evacuation from a sinking ship, and didn't lose a loved one or get seriously injured, it seems excessive to me.

 

Until it happens to you then maybe you won't think its excessive.

[GXmanDC]

I'm just curious...why would they want to get it into a US court?

 

US Courts are friendlier to the consumer, especially state courts. State court juries have known to be very generous. Attorneys can work on contingency here, that is not true everywhere. Here, unless a claim is ruled frivolous, the plaintiff is not responsible for the defendant's legal costs. Most European countries make the plaintiff pay.

 

I'm not an attorney so I don't know all of the pros and cons of choosing a jurisdiction. I work in the litigation field and we are usually on the defense against these types of suits.

[Jtd724]

Yeah some crew members were great, some were not. take for example the video of a Costa woman telling people to return to their room because everything is fine half hour or so AFTER the collision. 160k? In todays world that's nothing. They deserve at least that if not more. The captain is at complete fault and so is Costa for shoddy muster drills and for either lying or being dumb as hell for not knowing the ship is sinking and taking on water well after the fact and telling employees to tell passengers to go back to their room.

[Dave85]

Just want to quickly correct a misconception repeated above that the attorneys who bring the suit will be personally getting up to 50% of the recovery.

 

What generally happens in cases brought with a contingent fee structure (attorneys don't get anything unless they win the case or settle), the standard contract is about 1/3 to the attorneys (although its often less in huge dollar cases like this). Additionally, the costs incurred in litigating the case will also come out of any award ("costs" means things like... money to pay vendors that the legal team uses for various services while litigating, such as the folks who record depositiosn and such). So while the amount taken from the settlement for legal fees could certainly exceed 1/3, it's not exactly as described above.

 

This stuff gets complicated, but if they're asking for $160,000 per victim keep in mind that there's no way the victim will actually see that full amount (and for that matter, its highly unlikely that the case will settle at that amount either).

[clean1owner]

Sooo................Are we saying that Costas offer of 30% off a future cruise wasn't enough?

[Artemis908]

I personally don't blame the crew. It's not their fault they weren't properly trained or weren't given the correct information. I am sure most of them had no idea what was going on and were just following orders.

 

I completely blame Costa and the officers. Costa because they poorly trained the officers and crew and because they so poorly reacted afterwards, leaving many alone while trying to find a way home. Officers for not stepping in and then leaving the ship with the captain.