The men and women aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s Triumph finally disembarked last week after an engine fire left the ship and its occupants stranded at sea for five harrowing days. For their troubles, Carnival has offered each passenger a compensation package which includes a ticket refund, $500, a flight home and a voucher good for one luxury Carnival cruise.
For many of the ship’s 4,200 passengers, however, this package will be inadequate. As these passengers begin to contact attorneys throughout South Florida to assess whether they can seek additional compensation from Carnival, an apparent conflict between the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of waivers of class status could determine the practicality of these customer’s claims.
