Fined for Leaving Ship in Medical Emergency!

[GCLcruiser]

My wife and I got on the Marina in NYC on March 16 for a 14-day cruise ending in Lisbon. The first day was a day at sea to be followed by a stop in Boston (MA), Bar Harbor (ME), Halifax (Canada), then the Azores, Madeira, and Lisbon.

 

On the afternoon of the first day at sea my wife became very confused and didn’t know where she was. We immediately called the ship’s doctor who whisked her away to the ship’s infirmary where she stayed for 6 to 8 hours. The doctor said it appeared to be a TIA (a minor stroke). As this trip would involve many days at sea as we crossed the Atlantic and stops in much smaller cities, we made the decision (with the advice of the ship’s doctor) to go to Mass General Hospital in Boston early the next morning rather than risking the potential for more and larger stroke events with no good quality facilities within reach while on the ship (a decision that I think any reasonable person would have made). As we assumed that we would not be getting back on the ship our friends took our baggage to a nearby hotel for us.

 

After spending the next day and night in the hospital we were told that my wife did not have a mini stroke, but a more benign event not related to a stroke and that was not likely to occur ever again. After much discussion, we decided to rejoin the ship when it landed in Halifax.

 

After paying for two nights in a hotel in Boston ($500) and for two one-way airline tickets to Halifax ($600) (not to mention over $6,000 in medical bills from the ship’s doctor and infirmary), we found that we were also billed $300 each (a total of $600) for “Jones Act”.

 

After some investigation I found that the ship erroneously cited the Jones Act, it should have been Passenger Vessel Services Act, and that we, in effect, were paying a fine that the ship was going to have to pay because we got off the ship before it left the country.

 

We are not attorneys and have no means of investigating the validity of this “fine” other than through the Internet…but, surely, there must be an exception for medical emergencies.

 

Does anyone have any similar experiences? Were you able to convince the cruise line to refund the “fines”?

[StanandJim]

Those fines are U.S. Government fines, the Cruise Line did not assess them and is not in a position to waive them.

United States Customs are the people to talk to for an exception.

 

the rules are encapsulated here (see pages 14 &15) :

https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pvsa_icp_3.pdf

[sitraveler]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

You may want to get your facts straight before going forward. The Marina left NYC on May 14. You were in Boston on 5/16. I am not a lawyer, but our entertainers were kept on board until Halifax to avoid the Jones act fines.

[SellaVee]

Given that it was a medical emergency can you not claim back your expenses from your insurance company?

 

I'm pleased to hear that your wife is now recovered.

[Flatbush Flyer]

OP: If you incurred a reasonable expense as a result of "trip interruption," you should look for reimbursement from the travel/medical insurance you purchased for the cruise. Also, if you purchased your cruise with a travel savvy credit card (e.g., United Airlines Explorer Visa), check on its trip interruption coverage.

[chengkp75]

Okay, first off, the fines levied by CBP for a violation of the PVSA are against the cruise line, not the passenger, but it is the cruise line's ticket contract where you authorize the cruise line to pass any fine on to you.

 

Now, having said that, the fine is levied even if the passenger who caused the violation was disembarked deceased. So, what you have to do is contact the cruise line for documentation that you and your wife were medically disembarked (if you don't already have this), and then with the documentation from the hospital, contact CBP and request a waiver of the fine. This is supposed to be the cruise line's business, but they feel that since they passed the fine to you, it becomes your problem to get the refund. CBP deals with cruise line medical and death disembarkation fines quite frequently, and they will work with you.

[rallydave]

Okay, first off, the fines levied by CBP for a violation of the PVSA are against the cruise line, not the passenger, but it is the cruise line's ticket contract where you authorize the cruise line to pass any fine on to you.

 

Now, having said that, the fine is levied even if the passenger who caused the violation was disembarked deceased. So, what you have to do is contact the cruise line for documentation that you and your wife were medically disembarked (if you don't already have this), and then with the documentation from the hospital, contact CBP and request a waiver of the fine. This is supposed to be the cruise line's business, but they feel that since they passed the fine to you, it becomes your problem to get the refund. CBP deals with cruise line medical and death disembarkation fines quite frequently, and they will work with you.

 

That sounds like a plan Cheng however there is the "small" matter of privity of Contract to deal with. CBP fined O and then O charged the OP for the fine. There is no privity of Contract between the OP and CBP since all CBP knows is that O was fined so really any refund from a waiver of the fine would be sent back from CBP to O and then after the OP worked to get the waiver, their money would be in O's hands and the OP would now need to deal with O to get their money back. Not the easiest process for the whole thing.

 

Perhaps CBP has worked these issues in the past and has the OP's names and could refund directly and hope that is the case however when dealing with the Government, they are sticklers for process and may put the OP in the no win middle and not even talk to them let alone refund the money to them.

 

Seems the process should be that the cruise line requests the waiver and leaves the OP out of the process and only charges if they can't get the waiver?? Certainly hope you can provide some clarity to help the OP get their $600 returned by the easiest method possible.

 

Thanks for all your wonderful posts and help on this and other boards Cheng,

[chengkp75]

That sounds like a plan Cheng however there is the "small" matter of privity of Contract to deal with. CBP fined O and then O charged the OP for the fine. There is no privity of Contract between the OP and CBP since all CBP knows is that O was fined so really any refund from a waiver of the fine would be sent back from CBP to O and then after the OP worked to get the waiver, their money would be in O's hands and the OP would now need to deal with O to get their money back. Not the easiest process for the whole thing.

 

Perhaps CBP has worked these issues in the past and has the OP's names and could refund directly and hope that is the case however when dealing with the Government, they are sticklers for process and may put the OP in the no win middle and not even talk to them let alone refund the money to them.

 

Seems the process should be that the cruise line requests the waiver and leaves the OP out of the process and only charges if they can't get the waiver?? Certainly hope you can provide some clarity to help the OP get their $600 returned by the easiest method possible.

 

Thanks for all your wonderful posts and help on this and other boards Cheng,

 

I will state that I have never had to do this myself, so any details are anecdotal. Also, I am not a lawyer, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night (Comfort Suites actually, on my way back to the ship).

 

CBP has the names of the passengers that caused the violation, so they will be aware of who the OP is when he contacts them. As you say, the line was fined, and CBP would normally refund any fine to the line, but they are aware of the ticket contract, and a copy of this should be provided with any documentation sent to CBP (I'll admit that I haven't read O's ticket contract to verify that the "passing along" the fine clause is there, but every other line uses it), and documentation that the OP was charged the fine should also be included. From these, CBP will allow the refund to be sent to the OP.

 

From my experience, most lines will send documentation to the OP, upon request, that the disembarkation was for medical reasons, and requesting a waiver. The line should do as you suggest and deal with it internally and only pass the fine to the passenger when there is no exception granted, but the process may take a couple of months, they don't want to have to pay employees to deal with this, and after the decision is made by CBP to deny an exemption, it has been a couple of months since the passenger disembarked, the bill is paid, and the line has no way to actually pass on the fine anymore. Sounds good to me, but they want the money right away, so they pass the fine and dump the grunt work on the passenger. As I said, most lines will work with the passenger to get the fine exempted, can't speak for Oceania specifically, because the more violations the line has in CBP's "black mark book", the more likely they are to come under stricter CBP scrutiny in other areas (drug searches, etc), though that sort of quid pro quo isn't supposed to happen, but it does with CBP.

[bitob]

Just be grateful your wife is well. In the scheme of things the fine is unimportant. Health is everything. We know that first hand as I nearly died last year

Edited May 31, 2016 by bitob

[pearzee]

Given that it was a medical emergency can you not claim back your expenses from your insurance company?

 

I'm pleased to hear that your wife is now recovered.

 

Yes, OP, if you haven't done so, make sure you submit your wife's medical bill to your health insurance company. I contracted the flu on the Marina last year and about 2/3 of my costs ended up being reimbursed. That Tamiflu was expensive! ;-)

[zoncom]

Several years ago wanted to do B2B AK and on to HNL on Celebrity. As a violation to PVSA we were told several times fine to Celebrity would be $300, nowhere near 6K. Do some investigation.

[StanandJim]

Several years ago wanted to do B2B AK and on to HNL on Celebrity. As a violation to PVSA we were told several times fine to Celebrity would be $300, nowhere near 6K. Do some investigation.

 

You misread his post, their fee is $600 ($300 pp) not $6000.00.

[floridatravelersforlife]

Your challenge will be to find the right CBP personnel and have them coordinate. This is a major task since it could involve CBP personnel in two or three offices across the country. I worked with the CBP as a contractor and they are not an organized sort when it comes to back office work. Customer

Service is not in their vocabulary.

 

Good Luck

[tarzana traveler]

Glad that your wife is O.K. Were you able to rejoin the cruise in Halifax?

 

We were also on this cruise and had a friend on board who also had to leave in Boston with a Heart Attack. He had a similar experience to you. He did make it home after 5 days in Mass. General Hospital. Unfortunately he passed away last Wednesday.

 

Thanks for advising about the possibility of getting exempted from the fine through dealing with CBP. I will advise his family as they probably could use a refund of this fine.

 

This is another example of a silly regulation. Do these bureaucrats actually believe this is a reasonable action (the Fine) under the circumstances involved, and that someone paid thousands of $ to board a cruise to intentionally travel only from NY to Boston.

[GUT2407]

Claim in your insurance and move on.

[StanandJim]

This is another example of a silly regulation. Do these bureaucrats actually believe this is a reasonable action (the Fine) under the circumstances involved, and that someone paid thousands of $ to board a cruise to intentionally travel only from NY to Boston.

You won't believe it, but that regulation is a holdover from the days when United States flagged ships, with their higher staffing costs, could not compete with foreign ships on a toe to toe basis.

 

Along with the laws which authorized shipbuilding and operating subsidies for our Merchant Marine, Congress made it illegal for non US ships to transport paying passengers between American ports, thinking that such a regulation would level the playing field.

 

This had the unintended consequence of entirely wiping out every vestige of maritime inter-port passenger travel, since there simply aren't any large American flagged passenger ships around today.

 

-but nobody has gotten around to repealing the Passenger Vessel Services Act because, well because it sounds so darned patriotic, and the law has been good for those tiny Inter-coastal and River Cruise Lines which pop up every now and again.

[RJB]

You won't believe it, but that regulation is a holdover from the days when United States flagged ships, with their higher staffing costs, could not compete with foreign ships on a toe to toe basis.

 

Along with the laws which authorized shipbuilding and operating subsidies for our Merchant Marine, Congress made it illegal for non US ships to transport paying passengers between American ports, thinking that such a regulation would level the playing field.

 

This had the unintended consequence of entirely wiping out every vestige of maritime inter-port passenger travel, since there simply aren't any large American flagged passenger ships around today.

 

-but nobody has gotten around to repealing the Passenger Vessel Services Act because, well because it sounds so darned patriotic, and the law has been good for those tiny Inter-coastal and River Cruise Lines which pop up every now and again.

So, how do we get the law changed? Seems like it needs to be done.

[rallydave]

So, how do we get the law changed? Seems like it needs to be done.

 

Don't disagree that the law has run its' course and needs to be gone but, a nice start would be for the cruise line to request the waiver real time before paying it as they are at that point in contact with the people collecting the fine and save the passengers who already have issues or they wouldn't be going to the hospital.

 

From other comments, the getting of the waiver after the fact is a difficult process for the passenger while it should be relatively easy for the cruise line to get the waiver real time before leaving port. Easy peasy and customer friendly with a little work by the Purser's office who are the ones who have all of the information and would normally pay the fine.

[Cruise Junky]

So, how do we get the law changed? Seems like it needs to be done.

 

Good luck. Last time it was addressed was to try and strengthen it, not get rid of it.

[GCLcruiser]

Sorry to hear about your friend. He must have been the one in the room adjacent to my wife's in the ship's infirmary. At one point as my wife was getting better the Doctor came out and said to me, "I was worried about your wife before, but I have a bigger problem next door now." Then, when I checked into the hotel near the hospital, the clerk said that they had another woman who checked in before me whose husband was in Mass General and that they had also gotten off the ship (I assume that this was your friend also).

 

As we were flying to Halifax to reboard the ship, we met yet another couple from the ship. She had fallen while in Boston and dislocated her shoulder and had cuts on her face. She also had been taken to Mass General and they reboarded the ship with us. We had heard that they has somehow gotten out of paying the $600 fine and we are trying to find out how they did it.

[chengkp75]

As far as the PVSA "wiping out" coastwise passenger traffic, that is not quite the case. The PVSA was not promulgated by "higher staffing costs" of US flag ships, since it was passed in 1886. It was, in fact, an outgrowth of the "Steamboat Inspection Act of 1852" which required steamboats on American rivers to be inspected for safety after several of them blew up. The PVSA was required to enforce this safety law by requiring all these "coastwise" and river vessels to be US flag. In fact, the Steamboat Inspection Service is the progenitor of the USCG's Marine Safety Division, which inspects the foreign flag cruise ships under port state authority to determine if SOLAS requirements are met. The PVSA and Jones Act are examples of cabotage laws, similar to other laws that prohibit foreign air carriers from domestic flights in the US, and also similar to maritime cabotage laws in over 40 other nations worldwide, including the EU, China, Japan, Russia and Brazil. What helped to wipe out the US Merchant Marine (passenger and cargo) was the maintenance of the construction and operating subsidies founded by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was crucial to winning WWII, but which was abused by the maritime labor movement and shipowners in the decades afterwards.

 

Repealing the PVSA would allow every ferry, commuter boat, water taxi, whale watching, casino, and even some charter fishing vessels to re-flag as foreign vessels and get relief from 90% of US laws, most importantly including oversight by the USCG, with their stricter regulations for the safety of vessels and training of officers and crew that can apply only to US flag vessels.

 

The cruise lines fought for over 10 years to get an exemption from the PVSA for passenger service between Puerto Rico and the mainland US. This exemption has been granted, but can go away the minute someone buys a used ship and declares he is going to provide a US flag service, and then Carnival and all its planning goes down the toilet. If the cruise lines were really interested in changing the PVSA, they could have and would have, but they are satisfied with the status quo, so I don't see any action in this direction.

 

I, personally, have never heard that obtaining a waiver of the PVSA fine was particularly difficult or onerous.

[chengkp75]

Good luck. Last time it was addressed was to try and strengthen it, not get rid of it.

 

In fact, the last time the PVSA was addressed, it was merely to enforce the intent of the existing law. CBP went overboard in response to NCL's application for enforcement, and in the end, even NCL disagreed with the proposed changes.

[tarzana traveler]

In fact, the last time the PVSA was addressed, it was merely to enforce the intent of the existing law. CBP went overboard in response to NCL's application for enforcement, and in the end, even NCL disagreed with the proposed changes.

 

I appreciate all the comments responding to my posting. There is at least one of you (Chengkp), maybe others too, out there that has a good knowledge and understanding of Maritime law and this issue. Do you know if this provision for a fine is written into the statute itself, or is it part of the implementing regulations? If it is the latter, then changes could be made without going back to Congress to change the law itself; a less complicated procedure

 

In either case, without support from the directly affected parties (Cruise Lines) any changes would be difficult to make. Changing regulations and laws is a very complex process, but given the purposes of the Act and this particular unintended consequence from an old law, a good case could be made.

[chengkp75]

I appreciate all the comments responding to my posting. There is at least one of you (Chengkp), maybe others too, out there that has a good knowledge and understanding of Maritime law and this issue. Do you know if this provision for a fine is written into the statute itself, or is it part of the implementing regulations? If it is the latter, then changes could be made without going back to Congress to change the law itself; a less complicated procedure

 

In either case, without support from the directly affected parties (Cruise Lines) any changes would be difficult to make. Changing regulations and laws is a very complex process, but given the purposes of the Act and this particular unintended consequence from an old law, a good case could be made.

 

I don't have the text of the PVSA, but the fine is part of the US Code: 46 US Code #55103 (so my understanding is that this is the law as passed by Congress) as well as in the CFR: 19 CFR 4.80 (which are the enabling regulations).

[tarzana traveler]

I don't have the text of the PVSA, but the fine is part of the US Code: 46 US Code #55103 (so my understanding is that this is the law as passed by Congress) as well as in the CFR: 19 CFR 4.80 (which are the enabling regulations).

 

It seems that the law authorizes the imposition of fines and the regulations set the criteria and amount. I think this problem (emergency medical disembarkation) could be corrected simply by CBP amending the regulation to exempt medical emergency disembarkation from the fine. No need to reopen the statute in Congress.

 

However there would not be much demand for the making a change as the cruse lines are really not impacted as they simply pass the costs on to their clients. The work involved to get such a change would be time consuming and costly, thus nothing will be done

 

Just another example of a silly regulation that serves no good purpose.