Miami Judge Orders Carnival to Pay $344,000 to Cruise Passenger Injured in Trip-and-Fall Accident
If you are injured as a guest on a cruise ship or at a Florida vacation resort, you may be entitled to compensation from the owner of the vessel or hotel, respectively, for your medical bills as well as your pain and suffering. In order to succeed with this kind of personal injury claim, however, you need to prove that the defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard that led to your accident. Actual notice means just that: the defendant knew about the problem and did nothing. Constructive notice, on the other hand, is where the defendant should have known something was wrong but did not.
Carnival Had “Constructive Notice” of Threshold Gap
A recent decision from a federal judge here in Miami, Rondon v. Carnival Corporation, provides a good illustration of how you can prove constructive notice in a cruise ship slip-and-fall case. In May 2023, the plaintiff was a passenger aboard the Carnival Celebration, a cruise ship launched by Carnival Corporation about six months earlier. One day during the cruise, the plaintiff tripped and fell on a threshold in the hallway outside of her cabin. She subsequently sued Carnival, alleging the fall caused her to suffer a broken arm, a dislocated right shoulder, and partial tears to two of the tendons in her right rotator cuff.
Both sides elected to have the judge try the case without a jury. On September 4, 2025, United States District Judge Roy K. Altman issued his judgment. With respect to liability, Altman found that Carnival had “constructive notice” of the dangerous threshold that caused the plaintiff’s fall. In short, he said the threshold “was dangerous” due to a “large gap” between the carpet and threshold. And this was not the sort of danger that would have been “open and obvious” to a passenger like the plaintiff; therefore Carnival had a duty to protect her, or at least warn her of the hazard, which it did not.
More to the point, Altman found that the defective threshold existed for a “sufficient period of time to invite corrective measures.” Specifically, Carnival’s own workers regularly pushed carts over the same threshold multiple times per day during the six months the ship had been in service. That meant Carnival management had more than enough time to notice the problem and take appropriate corrective measures.
In terms of compensation, Altman awarded the plaintiff $29,051.24 in economic damages for her past medical expenses and an additional $315,000 in non-economic damages, for a total award of $344,051.24. The judge said he determined the amount of non-economic damages by awarding $100,000 per year for the two years that had passed since the accident plus an additional $5,000 per year for the plaintiff’s life expectancy of 23 additional years.
Contact a Miami Cruise Ship Accident Lawyer Today
There are a number of special rules and procedures that injured passengers must follow when suing a cruise ship operator. That is why it is important to work with a dedicated Miami cruise ship accident lawyer who can represent you. Contact Pita Weber Del Prado in Miami today at 305-670-2889 to schedule a free consultation.
Source:
scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2083985830005835535
