Ruby Princess Class Action Trial commences 12 October 2022

[Cruisegroover]

The class action has been listed for trial. The trial will commence on 12 October 2022 and run for four weeks. It will be open to the public and a link is also provided for a livestream.

 

Further details in this link

https://www.shine.com.au/service/class-actions/ruby-princess-coronavirus-claim

[Cbtours]

2 minutes ago, Cruisegroover said:

The class action has been listed for trial. The trial will commence on 12 October 2022 and run for four weeks. It will be open to the public and a link is also provided for a livestream.

 

Further details in this link

https://www.shine.com.au/service/class-actions/ruby-princess-coronavirus-claim

Very interesting. We were on board and opted out of the class action. You had to actually opt out or even if you weren’t affected you would have been part of it.

[MMDown Under]

8 hours ago, Cbtours said:

Very interesting. We were on board and opted out of the class action. You had to actually opt out or even if you weren’t affected you would have been part of it.

That is interesting indeed.  It took a long time to come to trial.  To me the key point against the cruise company was that they wouldn't let their passengers cancel prior to the cruise, without charge, as other river cruise companies did. 

Did you continue with bus tour cruise?

[Cbtours]

3 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

That is interesting indeed.  It took a long time to come to trial.  To me the key point against the cruise company was that they wouldn't let their passengers cancel prior to the cruise, without charge, as other river cruise companies did. 

Did you continue with bus tour cruise?

I’ll answer when I get to airport 🥰

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 hours ago, MMDown Under said:

That is interesting indeed.  It took a long time to come to trial.  To me the key point against the cruise company was that they wouldn't let their passengers cancel prior to the cruise, without charge, as other river cruise companies did. 

Did you continue with bus tour cruise?

You're thinking of a different class action, Marion. This one is the one against Ruby Princess for not doing a thousand and one things to stop the spread of Covid even though very little was known about it at the time. 🤔😏

 

The fact that the Princess lawyers have let it go to court is very telling. 

[MMDown Under]

7 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

You're thinking of a different class action, Marion. This one is the one against Ruby Princess for not doing a thousand and one things to stop the spread of Covid even though very little was known about it at the time. 🤔😏

 

The fact that the Princess lawyers have let it go to court is very telling. 

yes i am  oops this is the sydney one  

[NSWP]

I have a couple of friends down here who were on the Ruby, both got covid, went to hospital and are part of the class action. They are still adamant Princess knew they had covids on board pre Sydney and conspired not to give the true picture to NSW Health, Border Force.

 

Time will tell.

Edited October 11, 2022 by NSWP

[Aus Traveller]

25 minutes ago, NSWP said:

I have a couple of friends down here who were on the Ruby, both got covid, went to hospital and are part of the class action. They are still adamant Princess knew they had covids on board pre Sydney and conspired not to give the true picture to NSW Health, Border Force.

 

Time will tell.

With respect, your friends' theory is not logical. When there were no confirmed cases on the previous cruise, how could Princess have 'known there was COVID on board'?

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

With respect, your friends' theory is not logical. When there were no confirmed cases on the previous cruise, how could Princess have 'known there was COVID on board'?

Plus influenza-A was doing the rounds. I got the impression that some passengers who were sick just thought it was flu or a cold and didn't go to the medical centre. They just carried on their regular cruise routines all over the ship. But very little was understood about Covid at that stage and, if my memory is correct, there were very few local cases.

[Aus Traveller]

14 hours ago, NSWP said:

I have a couple of friends down here who were on the Ruby, both got covid, went to hospital and are part of the class action. They are still adamant Princess knew they had covids on board pre Sydney and conspired not to give the true picture to NSW Health, Border Force.

 

Time will tell.

The theory that COVID was on board the Ruby from the previous cruise does not stand up to scrutiny. Genomic testing of those who contracted it on Ruby's last cruise showed that the particular strain of COVID was NOT present in Australia prior to the Ruby returning into Sydney. It was taken onto the ship by someone who came from overseas to join the cruise. It had to have been a passenger because of the spread of the infection - 700 passengers and 6 or 7 crew by the end of the cruise. If it had been present on the ship on the previous cruise, passengers would have taken it ashore and been diagnosed during the time the Ruby was on its NZ cruise.

 

Your Honour, I suggest that the theory has been shot down.

[NSWP]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

The theory that COVID was on board the Ruby from the previous cruise does not stand up to scrutiny. Genomic testing of those who contracted it on Ruby's last cruise showed that the particular strain of COVID was NOT present in Australia prior to the Ruby returning into Sydney. It was taken onto the ship by someone who came from overseas to join the cruise. It had to have been a passenger because of the spread of the infection - 700 passengers and 6 or 7 crew by the end of the cruise. If it had been present on the ship on the previous cruise, passengers would have taken it ashore and been diagnosed during the time the Ruby was on its NZ cruise.

 

Your Honour, I suggest that the theory has been shot down.

I am sitting on the fence on this one. Let the courts decide.

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, NSWP said:

I am sitting on the fence on this one. Let the courts decide.

I suppose I am not keen on the recent trend of litigation funders making a business of funding class action law suits where people are encouraged (pushed?) to be part of it. It is too much like the American system where people sue over the slightest thing - or so it seems to me.

 

The end result in genuine cases can be poor for the litigants. An example is the residents of Grantham (SE Q'ld) who suffered in the floods several years ago. They got a great judgement in their favour, but by the time the lawyers and the litigation funders took the lion's share, and one of the defendants appealed the judgement, the people who suffered the damage, got very little.

[christodan]

Considering the pandemic had not yet been declared by WHO when it set sail, I can't see how successful they will be in accusing Carnival of being negligent. Also considering how many people have died from COVID worldwide can anyone blame anybody? What about people who caught it in hospital when they were in there for something else? If hospitals couldn't control it, what hope does a cruise ship have? 

[MicCanberra]

It is a phishing expedition and they will likely lose the case. I think if Princess were worried, they would have offered a settlement already.

[Aus Traveller]

55 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

It is a phishing expedition and they will likely lose the case. I think if Princess were worried, they would have offered a settlement already.

I agree with your comments. Unfortunately the lawyers build people's hopes up that they will get a big pay-out and (from what I have read) fed them an alternative version of the facts. An example is claiming that COVID was on the previous cruise. Tests showed that people had viruses, but no-one tested positive to COVID. This claim is a major part of the plaintiff's action.

[GUT2407]

1 hour ago, MicCanberra said:

It is a phishing expedition and they will likely lose the case. I think if Princess were worried, they would have offered a settlement already.

But perhaps they did offer a settlement but they were still too far apart.

[GUT2407]

8 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I agree with your comments. Unfortunately the lawyers build people's hopes up that they will get a big pay-out and (from what I have read) fed them an alternative version of the facts. An example is claiming that COVID was on the previous cruise. Tests showed that people had viruses, but no-one tested positive to COVID. This claim is a major part of the plaintiff's action.

Well one expects there must be some evidence to support it, if it is enough evidence time will tell. If there is nothing to support the claim at all wh6 would anyone, lawyers, litigation lenders, plaintiffs themselves proceed, and why wouldn’t Princess seek summary judgement.

[Aus Traveller]

9 minutes ago, GUT2407 said:

Well one expects there must be some evidence to support it, if it is enough evidence time will tell. If there is nothing to support the claim at all wh6 would anyone, lawyers, litigation lenders, plaintiffs themselves proceed, and why wouldn’t Princess seek summary judgement.

As you say, "Time will tell" if there is any evidence of their claim.

[arxcards]

Is it over yet?

[GUT2407]

38 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Is it over yet?

Just getting started.

[pully8]

Report-of-the-Special-Commission-of-Inquiry-into-the-Ruby-Princess.pdf (nsw.gov.au) 

Who knows how the class action will pan out.

The nsw report had some interesting findings about how the ship was managed on return to Australia. 

As we know multiple other ships were impacted with various outcomes. 

Hopefully happier times are ahead. 

[NSWP]

I also know the  plaintiff, Henry Karpik, he almost died. One of my former bosses.

A decent man who served the State for 40 years.

[Aus Traveller]

10 hours ago, GUT2407 said:

Just getting started.

And expected to run for a month. We will keep having a re-hash of the Ruby Princess debacle on the news at night.

[GUT2407]

19 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

And expected to run for a month. We will keep having a re-hash of the Ruby Princess debacle on the news at night.

And may well run into next year, then some months to judgement.

[Aus Traveller]

8 hours ago, pully8 said:

Report-of-the-Special-Commission-of-Inquiry-into-the-Ruby-Princess.pdf (nsw.gov.au) 

Who knows how the class action will pan out.

The nsw report had some interesting findings about how the ship was managed on return to Australia. 

As we know multiple other ships were impacted with various outcomes. 

Hopefully happier times are ahead. 

Thank you for posting the link to the report. Page 31 makes interesting reading.

 

I read with interest that the Barrister for the Plaintiffs claimed that Carnival and Princess should have known that there would be COVID on board. Wow! We were on the Sea Princess around the same time, and there were no reports of COVID on, or following that cruise. Some cruiseships had COVID and some didn't. At the time, it was the luck of the draw. Somewhat like it is now.

 

As for passengers not being told of the risk - once again Wow! Passengers would had to have been living under a rock, not to have known that COVID was an increasing risk worldwide. Before we got on the Sea Princess, we had heard about COVID but considered it was unlikely it would be on our ship because it wasn't widespread in either Aust or NZ. We were lucky that none of the international passengers brought it on board (as happened on the Ruby). BTW Princess wouldn't allow people to board if they had been in China or Singapore in the previous 14 days. We were advised to take 14 days' extra medications with us. It was pretty obvious why.

 

While we were on the ship, a written up-date on COVID was delivered to our cabin many times during the cruise. We were advised not to shake hands, to practice good hand sanitisation and to visit the medical centre if we had any respiratory symptoms.

 

I feel so sorry for the families of people who died, or people who have been left with long-COVID. This can be said of those who contracted COVID on the Ruby, or anywhere else for that matter. I won't be suing Specsavers for the fact that I contracted COVID from one of their staff who wasn't wearing a mask!