Two dozen passengers sued the Norwegian Cruise Line for $100 million yesterday after one of its ships was battered by a fierce storm while racing back to New York for a TV shoot for "The Apprentice."
Posted on 06/14/2005 11:24:17 AM PDT by finnman69
Two dozen passengers sued the Norwegian Cruise Line for $100 million yesterday after one of its ships was battered by a fierce storm while racing back to New York for a TV shoot for "The Apprentice."
In the suit, filed in Miami federal court, the passengers claimed they feared for their lives on April 15, when the Norwegian Dawn battled waves of up to 70 feet and harrowing gale-force winds that smashed windows and flooded more than 60 cabins. Four passengers were injured.
The passengers said the ship, which was returning from a cruise to the Bahamas, could have avoided the storm by staying in port or taking another course.
The line has acknowledged that the Norwegian Dawn was to have had a cameo appearance on "The Apprentice" on April 17 — as first reported in The Post — but has denied that the captain, Niklas Peterstam, was under any pressure to hurry back to New York.
A source close to the show said the line paid $1 million for the appearance, which never happened because the ship was diverted to Charleston, S.C., for repairs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
it was voted #1 worst lawsuit in the US. I will have to find a link.
Cool
and that was a small wave, not a rogue wave.
that is the one (except I thought it was a woman), is it an urban legend? I heard it as part of a radio news report.
Cruise ships navigate to avoid storms. They aren't military navy ships with trained hands who are accustomed to rough seas. They are floating cities loaded with rubber legged civilians aboard who are frequently older people with health problems.
http://www.mykawartha.com/ka/news/kawartha_lakes/story/2833757p-3281472c.html
not sure what this website is.
If anything, these people are owed a couple of extra days that they lost from the ship hastening back to meet someone else's timetable. Nevertheless, some of our most notable transportation disasters outside of terrorism (Titanic, Challenger, and the Andrea Gail come to mind) were because someone needed or wanted to meet an arbitrary deadline. This is the lesson that should be seared, seared into the brain of anyone taking responsibility for passengers and crew. These people were lucky, IMHO, that all they got was wet and banged up a little bit.
snopes says its false. well, there is always that woman with the coffee at McDonalds, we know that one is true.
Think of it as being trapped in a floating hotel with people you would not want to hang around with in real life.
I don't remember if it was Dr Walter Williams or Dr Thomas Sowell, but one of them wrote about this, and later found that it's actually an urban legend, debunked on Snopes.
Still, it's just dumb enough to be true, os it's easy to believe.
Mark
I did a quick search but couldnt find any "proof" that it is a true story. But it does have the "ring of truth" (or crash to it) :-)
I call Urban Myth. I have been hearing various versions of that 'cruise-control' story for over a decade at least, probably more.
From what I understand, there was no way they could have predicted a rogue wave. I am not sure, but that seems to be the case.
I think you're remembering a different, earlier incident.
Here, some passengers are acusing the Captain of navigating through a storm they believe he could have avoided by laying in port an extra day or by sailing a different course.
In 1994, a New Mexico jury awarded $ 2.9 million U.S. in damages to
81-year-old Stella Liebeck who suffered third-degree burns to her legs,
groin and buttocks after spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee on herself.
This case inspired an annual award - The "Stella" Award - for the most
ludicrous lawsuit.
1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was
running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little -&#@*!!!- was Ms. Robertson's son.
2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and
medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda
Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of
the car, when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation. Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.
4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500
and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced-in yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke
her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her
boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the
owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.
7. Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City. In November 2000 Mr. Grazinski
purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee.
Not surprisingly the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr
Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he
couldn't actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnie.
(Winniebago actually changed their handbooks on the back of this court
case, just in case there are any other complete morons buying their vehicles.)
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