Suing Carnival

[Tenniswiz103]

With lawsuits in the news lately, has anyone ever sued Carnival over something? If so, did you win or lose? What was Carnival's reaction to the lawsuit? Thanks in advance for all of the information.

[derf5585]

In Darce Carlisle v. Carnival Corp.

from

http://www.lipcon.com/news_article31.shtml

 

Also has other lawsuits on bottom of page

[MERVYN BREMMER]

In Darce Carlisle v. Carnival Corp.

from

http://www.lipcon.com/news_article31.shtml

 

Also has other lawsuits on bottom of page

And that sort of answers that!!

[Creole Girl]

Wow! How interesting to see that case. I would not think they would hold Carnival liable for that.

[gwe21]

wow.... wonder if that girl's appendix would have ruptured at school if they would have sued the principal?!?!

 

Lawsuits are becoming absurd!! really... is it truly Carnival's fault that she had a ruptured appendix and subsequent infection?!

[voyagerfl]

wow.... wonder if that girl's appendix would have ruptured at school if they would have sued the principal?!?!

 

Lawsuits are becoming absurd!! really... is it truly Carnival's fault that she had a ruptured appendix and subsequent infection?!

 

Appendix normally only burst (rupture) awhile after the onset of inflamation and a lot of pain ! That little girl probably suffered quite a bit.

A ruptured appendix also usually causes a bad (often life-threatening) infection.

 

Besides, she was seeing a Doctor......Not a Principal. ;)

 

It's up to the courts to decide who is responsible under the Law.

[BND]

My son has a friend at college whose appendix burst. He had seen the nurse at school a couple of times and they said it didn't appear to be his appendix, but they finally took him to the E. R.after the pain got worse. No one sued for that one. It can happen to anyone, anywhere and isn't always the first thing diagnosed. The pain isn't always on the side and not everyone has a fever before it bursts. The problem is that some people haven't figured out that sometimes things just happen and no is responsible for it. My nephew's also burst right before surgery and no one blamed his doctor for not picking it up immediately. I actually know another boy whose burst after misdiagnosis and got infected and he spent several days in intensive care and his family didn't sue. Yes, it's terrible that hers got so infected that she became sterile (I've never heard of that happening before), but to blame the ship because they didn't know it was her appendix is unfortunate. Most of what the the Dr. on a cruise ship has to deal with is gastrointestinal viruses, hangovers and motion sickness. Dr's are just as imperfect as the rest of us. Suing will not cause undue hardship for the cruise line and money certainly won't bring back her fertility.

[halos]

Did anyone read the article that was linked underneath about the crew and their working hours/wages????

Sad :(

[voyagerfl]

My son has a friend at college whose appendix burst. He had seen the nurse at school a couple of times and they said it didn't appear to be his appendix, but they finally took him to the E. R.after the pain got worse. No one sued for that one. It can happen to anyone, anywhere and isn't always the first thing diagnosed. The pain isn't always on the side and not everyone has a fever before it bursts. The problem is that some people haven't figured out that sometimes things just happen and no is responsible for it. My nephew's also burst right before surgery and no one blamed his doctor for not picking it up immediately. I actually know another boy whose burst after misdiagnosis and got infected and he spent several days in intensive care and his family didn't sue. Yes, it's terrible that hers got so infected that she became sterile (I've never heard of that happening before), but to blame the ship because they didn't know it was her appendix is unfortunate. Most of what the the Dr. on a cruise ship has to deal with is gastrointestinal viruses, hangovers and motion sickness. Dr's are just as imperfect as the rest of us. Suing will not cause undue hardship for the cruise line and money certainly won't bring back her fertility.

 

WoW......looks like Appendix are Bursting Out All Over. :rolleyes:

[I Luv Crusin]

Dr's are just as imperfect as the rest of us. Suing will not cause undue hardship for the cruise line and money certainly won't bring back her fertility.

 

That's why it's called "practicing medicine". We need to be our own advocates when it comes to cruising, healthcare or anything else.

[gwe21]

Appendix normally only burst (rupture) awhile after the onset of inflamation and a lot of pain ! That little girl probably suffered quite a bit.

A ruptured appendix also usually causes a bad (often life-threatening) infection.

 

Besides, she was seeing a Doctor......Not a Principal. ;)

 

It's up to the courts to decide who is responsible under the Law.

 

 

 

I know exactly how and why an appendix can and will burst. It can happen at any time actually, without many up front symptoms. In females especially the pain is often mistaken for ovarian or menstrual type cramps. I know it happened to me when I was 14. I was rushed into emergency surgery and also had to have part of my ovary removed because of it.

 

My point is that Carnival shouldn't be held liable because of the dr's decisions in this case. There are many dr's who would have made the same call about "the flu". A young girl with diahrea and belly pain....on a cruise ship...I bet that she would have been misdiagnosed at the beginning with a lot of doctors even if she would not have been on a cruise.

 

I think that there are too many frivilous lawsuits out there. There has to be some type of control over it. Before too long doctors will be afraid to practice medicine at all.

[cruisercathy]

The week before I graduated from college I was not feeling well, but chalked it up to too much partying..............In the middle of my graduation ceremony(it was a Saturday) I doubled over in pain...pain in the middle of my stomach.......went to lay down afterwards but just wanted to go home (a 4 1/2 hour ride) so my parents packed the car and off we went...........I thought I had a wicked virus. Sunday morning I couldn;t walk so off to the emergency room we went. I was admitted for tests and on Monday morning I had surgery to remove the ruptured appendix...........I was full of infection and drains for 19 days..........

 

I know the pain.....I don;t understand where the malpractice comes in....maybe you can become sterile............but I didn't.............

[kodiac]

Doctors try thier best to determine what a problem is. I agree with the above posters in the fact that the doctor is there for minor injuries and there is not an ER onboard. This is very important to remember when cruising.

 

My question: what if this girl was diagnosed, flown off the ship to say.... Belize (nothing against Belize - just an example) and operated on by a doctor and later pronounced dead due to complications. Would this family go after the doctor in Belize??

[bphman]

This is one reason why there is a push to set up medical courts which are akin to worker's compensation courts. The problem is that, despite what you believe, you are not tried by a jury of your peers in the medical profession. You have an individual who has a poor outcome and a jury who is sympathetic to his/her plight. Scientific evidence means NOTHING. What matters is which lawyer can appeal to the jury in a more favorable light. And, in some venues, the defendant has no chance. The juries side with the poor defendant no matter what the evidence shows. Around here we say, "at least you're not being sued in the Bronx."

[phroggie]

I think that there are too many frivilous lawsuits out there. There has to be some type of control over it. Before too long doctors will be afraid to practice medicine at all.

 

Frivolous? I thinks the facts are clear that the physician (allegedly) blew his diagnosis (by virtue of the fact that it was wrong). This is called "medical malpractice." It's an issue for a jury to decide and for them to decide to what extent it was a mistake and to what extent it was negligence, once the plaintiff presents evidence proving malpractice. The news worthy issue here seems to be that a judge has looked beyond a cruise line's claim that by calling them "independent contractors" they are magically absolved from all responsibility. From reading http://www.carnival.com/CMS/FAQs/Medical_Services.aspx one would presume that the ship's physician should be minimally competent to diagnose it correctly and even perform an appendectomy.

 

If a lawsuit is frivolous, the judge has the power to summarily dismiss it, and a jury should also be capable finding such based on the evidence presented to them. (And don't go on about Cup of Coffee vs. McDonalds. Given the evidence presented to them, that or any other jury had no choice but to find for the plaintiff. Their error was in the amount of punitive damages they awarded which was immediately reduced by the trial judge, a fact rarely mentioned by the no-accountability lobby.)

 

By the way, why should the Honorable Rep. Tom Delay get to pull the plug on his comatose dad then sue for wrongful death, but those of us who aren't juiced-in shouldn't?

[NewOrleansGuy]

Hey......if you smoke and get cancer, you can sue the cigarette company. If you gain a lot of weight, you can sue McDonalds. Its just another example of how this society wants to blame SOMEBODY for EVERYTHING, especially when its either their own fault, or an honest mistake.

And as for the McDonalds case..........she sued BECAUSE THE COFFEE WAS TOO HOT. BS suit, and she shouldn't have won a DIME. BUT, a "jury" found OJ innocent, so anything is possible.

HEY.......I spilled a coke on my shirt the other day.....maybe I ought to sue Burger King for the cleaning bill..............:D

[bphman]

Juries are not capable of making these decisions and that is the root of the problem. It is very easy to say that someone blew the diagnosis. Appendicitis can be an extremely difficult diagnosis to make especially in a female. It is so difficult to make that diagnosis that it is accepted to have 15% of the appendices removed as normal. With doctors fearing a malpractice case for a wrong diagnosis in this setting, this normal rate will surely rise the same way cesarean section rates increased with all of the suits filed for cerebral palsy despite the fact there is no evidence at all to support a birth incident to be the cause. Now, obstetricians are becoming a dying breed. You can thank junk lawsuits for that. This is not to say the the medical profession should not be held accountable for malpractice. They should be. But the tort system does nothing to punish problem doctors.

[Jonathan Quayle Higgins]

Do cruise ships have medical lab services? When I went in to the hospital with abdominal pain, they thought it was likely that I had appendicitis, but they took blood and urine samples to verify it. I am not a doctor and this happened 15 years ago, but I wonder if lab tests are required to verify the diagnosis. If so, do cruise ships have this capability? Do ships have facilities to perform emergency surgery?

[GoinCruisin]

Do cruise ships have medical lab services? When I went in to the hospital with abdominal pain, they thought it was likely that I had appendicitis, but they took blood and urine samples to verify it. I am not a doctor and this happened 15 years ago, but I wonder if lab tests are required to verify the diagnosis. If so, do cruise ships have this capability? Do ships have facilities to perform emergency surgery?

 

I'm not sure... I had an appendicitis 15 years ago, went to the ER twice and they told me it was nothing... said it might be scar tissue the first time, and gas the second :rolleyes: 2 hours after that last visit, I was in surgery... they did blood tests, so I am not sure what could have shown up on there... From what I have seen, they are not very easy to diagnose and typically it isn't until the appendix has actually ruptured that people know they have a problem... and at that point it is critical... There may be better tests these days, I'm not sure...

[ken56]

here we go.......the slow erosion of our rights. there are those that say we as average citizens are not capable of understanding and decieding what merrits malpractice and or frivilous litigation. the courts are the average persons only recourse to right any percieved wrong done to them and theirs. if we as thinking human beings are so gulible as to be duped by sharp lawyers but yet manage to live our daily lives without being taken advantage of on an hourly basis how is it that we do this ? I, for one see nothing but bad things ahead if tort reform goes forward in the form some people want it.......stacked against average people and more to protect big business. if you are ever on a jury and think that whats in front of you to decied is frivolous then say so in your vote. dont let that be taken away from you.

[halos]

My DH was in the hospital for 8 days in excrutiating pain and vomiting straight for 2 days before they finally decided to take out his appendix. It hadn't ruptured but was enflamed and causing all kinds of havok. It took them..in a hospital..in Philadelphia (where the hospitals are very good if you ask me) 8 days to figure this out.

I can't imagine it being an 'easy' diagnosis.

and...no, we didn't sue....even after the surgeon, who was inside my husband's stomach for goodness sake, pronounced him as a victim of Crohne's disease and had him on this wicked strong Rx (I think it was called Azulfidine or something) for weeks before my DH finally went to a specialist who told him he didn't have Crohnes...the issue had been his appendix all along.

I don't know if I'd have sued if I was this girls mother or not....

I do know that it may come to the point where ships doctors will be very quick to 'throw' passengers off the ship to cover their butts and in most cases of abdominal pain and diarrhea....the cause will be stomach flu...so you'll be off the ship with a 24 hour bug...and then you'll sue because they threw you off the ship...

 

My Dad died from DVT at a young age because he broke his hip after a fall...he was only 53. My Mother had to get a lawyer because he was at work when he fell and Workman's Comp gave her a hard time about paying. The lawyer IMMEDIATELY wanted to know if she was suing the doctor...why...he'd get more if they went after the doctor.

As it stands the *&*^%$##%%%^% gets way too much. The workman's comp checks that my mom gets each have 20% taken from them FOREVER that goes to the lawyer, who basically did nothing for her. Once he discovered that no one faulted the doctor...he slacked off terribly.

I dislike lawyers a whole lot...sorry to any here who practice law...but I've never experienced one that was helpful or not terribly self centered and impossibly greedy.

[PlanningToCruise]

my younger sister ( 42) just had her's out a few months ago, they did a simple CBC blood test, then did a cat scan to confirm. She was scared to death, lol

 

It was her first surgery in 42 yrs, and first hospital stay OTHER then when she gave birth to her 2 children. I had mine out at age 14, I was at the big local fair ( which happened to be across the street from a hospital) and doubled over and couldn't move, the police actually carried me across the street to the ER, I was in surgery within an hr, they ruptured while I was on the operating table, my mom and dad got to the hospital as I was coming out of surgery.

[GoinCruisin]

Halos, I have one for ya! I had surgery in 1994, about 5 months later I started having HORRIBLE pain in my stomach... well, of course they said "it could be an appendicitis"... um, no... don't have an appendix... so after plenty of doctors guessing, they just went in... someone had left a CLAMP INSIDE me during my last surgery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It never even entered my mind to sue!!!! I guess we are all different... I was just so happy they found what it was and I was out of pain!!! Wow, to think, if I had the "sue happy" mentality, I could be off in the caribbean somewhere now :D

[luvdasea]

People have got to take responsibility for their own health. If you don't like the diagnosis, get a second opinion. Doctors are only people like you and me. What they are looking for in a blood test is an elevated white blood cell count, which shows a sign of infection. But sometimes this doesn't even rise until it is too late. When my brother was having stomach pains and the 1st MD blew him off, I told him to rush to someone else. I can't see the ship Doc performing surgery on the ship. There is a kind of travel insurance that will fly you to the nearest hospital or get you out of trouble if there is unrest in anywhere in the world.. In this day and age it's probably worth it. If that was my kid, I would have insisted that they get my daughter help. You as the patient have to stand up for your rights. Thank God the girl didn't die, they should be grateful for that. Believe me, it happens.

[tamscottc]

My DH was in the hospital for 8 days in excrutiating pain and vomiting straight for 2 days before they finally decided to take out his appendix. It hadn't ruptured but was enflamed and causing all kinds of havok. It took them..in a hospital..in Philadelphia (where the hospitals are very good if you ask me) 8 days to figure this out.

I can't imagine it being an 'easy' diagnosis.

and...no, we didn't sue....even after the surgeon, who was inside my husband's stomach for goodness sake, pronounced him as a victim of Crohne's disease and had him on this wicked strong Rx (I think it was called Azulfidine or something) for weeks before my DH finally went to a specialist who told him he didn't have Crohnes...the issue had been his appendix all along.

I don't know if I'd have sued if I was this girls mother or not....

I do know that it may come to the point where ships doctors will be very quick to 'throw' passengers off the ship to cover their butts and in most cases of abdominal pain and diarrhea....the cause will be stomach flu...so you'll be off the ship with a 24 hour bug...and then you'll sue because they threw you off the ship...

 

My Dad died from DVT at a young age because he broke his hip after a fall...he was only 53. My Mother had to get a lawyer because he was at work when he fell and Workman's Comp gave her a hard time about paying. The lawyer IMMEDIATELY wanted to know if she was suing the doctor...why...he'd get more if they went after the doctor.

As it stands the *&*^%$##%%%^% gets way too much. The workman's comp checks that my mom gets each have 20% taken from them FOREVER that goes to the lawyer, who basically did nothing for her. Once he discovered that no one faulted the doctor...he slacked off terribly.

I dislike lawyers a whole lot...sorry to any here who practice law...but I've never experienced one that was helpful or not terribly self centered and impossibly greedy.

 

 

Hi Halos,

 

My 8 yr. old daughter has Crohns disease she was diagnosed at 2 yrs. old and has been on Pentasa (Azulfindine) since that age. She also takes Prednisone(steroids) ....it is an awful disease....Glad your husband was misdiagnosed. My daughter had her appendix removed last year laparoscopically. This was done at CHOP (Childrens Hosp. of Phila.) and yes, Phila. has some GREAT hospitals..........

 

 

I'm still waiting on my Clam Bake order you were spose to be sending me ...

Hope to catch up with ya in June...

 

Tammy