In a world-first, the Federal Court of Australia has granted victory to the plaintiffs in a class action against Carnival Cruise, the world’s largest cruise operator, for mishandling a COVID-19 outbreak on the ill-fated Ruby Princess.
The cruise ship was docked in Sydney in 2020 after an 11-day round trip to New Zealand, however, an outbreak and subsequent quarantine, resulted in almost 700 passengers contracting the virus.
According to the Federal Court ruling (pdf) on Oct. 25, Carnival was found to be negligent in allowing the ship to disembark from Circular Quay on March 8, 2020, despite advice from New South Wales’ health officials.
Justice Angus Stewart said in his summary that to cancel the cruise was not so “burdensome that a reasonable person“ in Carnival’s position would ”not have cancelled the cruise.”
“The respondents were therefore negligent and in breach of their duty of care,” Justice Stewart said.
“To proceed with the cruise carried a significant risk of a coronavirus outbreak, with possible disastrous consequences, yet they proceeded regardless.”
Passengers on the Ruby Princess include Australians, as well as U.S. citizens.
The justice ruled that Carnival made misleading claims that it was “reasonably safe” for passengers to embark on the cruise, that it would take care of passenger safety, as well as carry out monitoring, screening, and sanitation protocols.
The justice also found that Carnival had breached Australian Consumer Law guarantees and failed to take appropriate measures to protect passengers from being infected with COVID-19.
Lead Applicant Wins Payout
Retired nurse Susan Karpik was the lead plaintiff in the class action and represented more than 800 other people in the class action.
Ms. Karpik was diagnosed with COVID-19 while on board the cruise ship and passed the disease to her husband, Henry. He required ventilation, was placed into an induced four-week coma, and spent two months in hospital.
Ms. Karpik accused Carnival Cruise of making misleading representations to consumers that they would have a “safe, relaxing, and pleasurable” trip to New Zealand.
“It’s of course only a partial win as 28 lives were lost on this cruise,” Ms. Karpik said.
“There are many individuals and families who will never recover from this loss.”
Ms. Karpik also sought damages of $360,000 for personal injuries, distress, and disappointment, but was not successful as her illness was deemed to be mild and her injuries did not support the severity of her claim.
However, she did receive out-of-pocket medical expenses in the sum of $4,423 plus interest. Carnival has also refunded her the $4,400 she paid for the trip.
The class-action trial commenced more than a year ago and is a world-first, according to Shine Lawyers.
COVID-19 On Cruise Ships
In the early days of the pandemic, some governments discouraged cruise ships from docking and suggested people should avoid going on cruise trips as crowded areas and lack of medical resources on these ships could make them hotbeds of COVID-19 infection.The first cruise ship to have a major COVID-19 outbreak was the British-registered Diamond Princess, which is also owned by Carnival Corporation. Around 700 people contracted the virus on board and nine people died. The ship remained in quarantine at Yokohama, Japan, from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20, 2020.
Over 40 cruise ships around the world had had reported positive COVID-19 cases by June 2020.
