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 ...
See: http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006590
How to Survive
A Freak Wave--
And Avoid Whining
Sometimes you just have to ride out the storm.
Whiners. I would love to be on that jury.
it won't even go to trial - the cruise line will settle.
did you see the case of the woman who won a big settlement from Winnebago because they did not tell her the cruise control was not an auto-pilot, and she left the drivers seat to go make herself a sandwich while the motor home crashed?
if she can win that case, this case against the cruise line has merit. not for $100M, but for something.
This is just another shake-down by people wanting to take advantage of natural phenomena at the expense of the cruise line. The North Sea is notoriously rough, and it was not the ship's captain or the cruise line's fault that a rogue wave hit the vessel. The cruise line should fight this and not settle, which I fear it will do.
PLEEEZEE tell me you are kidding about the Winnebago case! How can we possibly moron-proof everything?????
One would think you go on a cruise ship at your own risk. Stormy weather is an an act of God, and you can't hold the crew accountable. They should throw the case out!
Not if you have a choice.
The passengers, and their lawyer, claim Captain Peterstam had a choice. If he could have gone round about, roast him and Norwegian Cruise Line.
But in the end, the passengers may indeed NOT have a claim. In another article came this bit of info: "The Coast Guard has said the ship's captain acted appropriately."
How insensitive!
A vacation is suppose to be a get-away-from-everyone, not join 1500 weirdos and drunks on a boat for 7 days.
From the story: Four passengers were injured.
These ships have schedules to keep
From another story, "and was forced to return early for a taping of Donald Trump's TV show"
By the way - you can view the whole of the posted story without NYPost registration here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159502,00.html
I hope they don't get one red cent.
IF BUSH WOULD SIGN THE KYOTO TREATY THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED !!! ...
</sarcasm off>
I believe that it an urban myth but here's another version too
"7.This year's favorite could easily be Mr. Merv
Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski
purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor
home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the
freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and
calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back
and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly,
the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr.
Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the
owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The
jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The
company actually changed their manuals on the basis of
this suit, just in case there were any other
complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.
And we wonder why our insurance is so high."
Everything you read in an email is true.
Well, that took a heck of a lot of searching, but I finally found an updated link for it. Here's a video of the QE2 wave, from a lounge on Deck 2 during it's maiden crossing from Southhampton to New York. http://63.217.28.3/images/other2/colin_camerons_wave_on_www.cruiseserver.net.WMV
Note that I had to copy/paste that URL into my winamp to get it to play. Pretty freaky!
Link please
They said they had a great time on the cruise. They got half their money back, a $1000 voucher for a future cruise, and the remaining two and a half days were open bar.
They couldn't have been happier with the response by the cruise line, and they do not plan on suing anybody, mostly on account of their not being bloodsucking leeches on society always scrounging around for a pathetic handout.
I thought that sounded outrageous. It's an urban legend.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.