An Australian judge has ruled that Carnival misled passengers about safety risks and that the Ruby Princess should have canceled the March 2020 cruise before departure.
About 900 Covid cases and 28 deaths were linked to the epidemic that broke out on board the ship. The landmark ruling paves the way for hundreds of other claimants to seek compensation.
Susan KarpikA retired nurse, she traveled with her husband Henry on the Ruby Princess, which left Sydney for New Zealand in March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. There were about 2,671 passengers and 1,146 crew members on board.
Retired police officer Henry Karpick contracted the virus and was hospitalized for two months, during which time he was placed in an induced coma and at one point given days to live.
The judge ruled that Carnival’s Australian division was negligent and also awarded Susan Karpek A$4,423.48, about 1 million Hungarian forints, and interest on medical expenses.
This is only a fraction of the A$360,000, more than 82.7 million Hungarian forints, for which Suzanne Karpic was fined, but the ruling opens the way for thousands of other passengers who traveled on the same route to make a claim.
Agnus Stuart The judge ruled that the carnival “knew or should have knownAbout the “great danger” of the outbreak of the epidemic, which could have had “catastrophic” consequences, yet he continued his journey “regardless” and that all “YThe “man with the crazy mind” was going to cancel the trip.
Speaking in court, Ms Karpik remembered the 28 people who lost their lives after the outbreak, saying many would have been “celebrating an important event in their lives” when they took part in the cruise.
In his ruling, the judge said there had been an outbreak of an “influenza-like illness” on the cruise immediately before the cruise. He added that that flight ended early on March 8, 2020, and increased the risk of the virus being transmitted to the next flight.
According to Shine Lawyers, the ruling creates the opportunity to win a class action lawsuit against the cruise line for the first time in the world. The number of plaintiffs may also increase if the Australian High Court decides that 700 American passengers can be included in the class action.
For some time, travel was the single source of the largest number of Covid-19 infections in Australia, and a public inquiry into the outbreak found that New South Wales state health officials made “serious errors” – I reported about it BBC.
Carnival Australia said it was studying the ruling in detail.
