MIAMI -- The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida has dismissed two counts of a suit filed by a family against Celebrity Cruises after workers refused to allow an elderly woman back aboard ship after she took ill during a seven-day cruise around Mexico and the Caribbean in 2017.
Maria Negron, Victor Gonzalez, Lizette Gonzalez and Miguel Gonzalez all filed suit seeking $900,000 in May, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment in the wake of the 84-year-old Negron not being allowed to reboard the cruise after briefly being hospitalized while the boat was docked in Barbados.
According to court filings, Negron was transported to a local hospital after medical personnel aboard the ship initially misdiagnosed her with a heart attack.
Even after she was medically cleared and reported feeling fine, Celebrity Cruises management decided against allowing her to return to the ship, insisting she “demonstrated an inability to withstand the physical rigor of a cruise, to continue for three more days on the high seas.”
At that point, the plaintiffs allege they were transported to a hotel and ultimately left stranded in Barbados.
“Because of this the plaintiffs were deprived of the cruise for which they paid, incurred unanticipated expenses, including the cost of a plane ticket for Gonzalez to Miami [not the port of embarkation], among other complaints,” the suit alleged.
In moving to dismiss allegations of negligence and trespassing the court asserted “a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress ‘requires ‘mental or emotional harm [such as fright or anxiety] that is caused by the negligence of another and that is not directly brought about by a physical injury, but that may manifest itself in physical symptoms.’”
In an order signed by U.S. District Court Judge Robert N. Scola Jr., the court added “there are no plausible allegations that the plaintiffs sustained a ‘physical impact’ from the defendant’s allegedly negligent conduct.”
The plaintiffs’ trespass claims stem from allegations that cruise ship employees entered their assigned cabin to pack and deliver” their belongings.
In also dismissing those claims, the court stipulated “to state a claim for trespass, the plaintiffs must plausibly allege that they had the exclusive control or possession of their cruise ship cabin. They have not and cannot.”
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