Legal Malpractice

Cruise Ship Negligence and Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Cruise Ship Season comes and goes, and even in poor economic times, the ships carry many people to their vacations.  As in all events human, there will be accidents and injury.  The very nature of cruise ships, their location and the mere fact that they travel on water, complicates the legal horizon.  Nautical law is different from terrestrial law, and many times [for legal advantage] the ships themselves are registered in other countries.

All this leads to mistakes when a passenger is physically injured.  Whom does one sue, the travel agent or the cruise ship line?  Where does one sue?  How does one effect service of process?  These are just some of the smaller questions.  How do you line up the witnesses, now back in their many different homes?  How do you get the medical testimony, which was taken far, far away?

Here is a legal malpractice case from such an occurrence.  Engler v Kalmanowitz ;2009 NY Slip Op 02237   Decided on March 24, 2009   Appellate Division, First Department .  Here, the legal malpractice claim is not set forth.  Was it service of process?  Was it failure to bring the action in a timely fashion?  We do not know.  What we do know is that Supreme Court determined that there were questions of fact still existing and that the Appellate Division found, as a matter of law, that the cruise ship, who was not a party to the legal malpractice action, had no notice of the defective carpet.
 

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on April 09, 2009 (boomark / email).