Court Rejects Passengers' Costa Concordia Lawsuit Filed in Miami

The Miami Justice Court has dismissed the lawsuit filed by the passengers of Costa Concordia ship that ran aground and sank in Italy. Both U.S. residents and non-U.S. residents cannot seek compensation from the US government for any injuries they suffered from the 2012 disaster.

Yesterday, the Third District Court of Appeals published its decision on Denise Abeid-Saba, et al. vs. Carnival Corp., Carnival PLC, Costa Crociere, S.p.A., Costa Cruise Lines, Inc., and Joseph Farcus Architect, P. A lawsuit, Cruise Law News reports.

The lawsuit was filed by a group of mostly tourists from the cruise ship.

An appelate in Miami court justice dismissed the case and ruled out that passengers will not get any reparations from both U.S government and the cruise ship company. Both U.S. and non-U.S. locals also cannot seek any payment for any injuries that they acquired on the said incident.

According to the report of  Miami Herald, the 57 petitioners,of whom five are U.S. residents, would have to take their case where the incident happened instead. The court stated that it is better to do the investigation at Italy because the evidences and other cruise debris are present on the country where the incident took place.

Judge Barbara Lagoa stated that "Litigating in Florida would result in material and manifest injustice to Carnival because the vast majority of evidence is located in Italy, as are virtually all of the witnesses". 

The cruise ship camp also moved to reject the other case filed by another 57 plaintiffs based on the lawful principle of "forum non conveniens". This principle argues that, the U.S. government is not an appropriate location to sue the cases, Cruise Law News reported.

The Costa Concordia incident was a week-long expedition going to Savona in the year 2012. The ship scampered into a ground when its captain sailed the ship close to the island of Giglio, causing it to strike an undersea reef. It resulted to the death of 32 passengers.

Tags

Costa Concordia Crash, Costa Concordia Ship, Miami, Italy, Miami Court, Italy Coastline

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