Miami Jury Holds Royal Caribbean Fully Liable for Officer's Crushed Hand; $19.47 Million Judgment Entered
After trial: The trial court cut the future medical award, producing a $19,466,467 judgment. The Third District affirmed liability in April 2021 but remanded for a new remittitur hearing under section 768.74(5).
Won by Colson Hicks Eidson.
A Miami-Dade jury found Royal Caribbean 100 percent liable under the Jones Act and unseaworthiness after a ship officer's right hand was crushed in a watertight door during a 2008 safety drill aboard Voyager of the Seas. She developed complex regional pain syndrome and PTSD. The jury awarded $20.3 million and the trial court's judgment, after trimming future medical expenses, was $19,466,467.
What happened
In August 2008, Lisa Spearman was an officer aboard Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas, docked in Barcelona, when the crew ran a safety drill. During the drill, a ship's nurse overrode the bridge control on a semi-watertight door, a heavy power door that closes to seal off sections of the ship. The nurse was carrying boxes when she tripped on the door's rising threshold flap.
Spearman reached to help. She pressed and held the door handle so the retracting door would not catch the nurse. Instead, the door closed on Spearman's right hand and crushed her fingers in its pinch point. The bridge had to close the door remotely to free her.
The injury did not stay in the hand. Spearman developed complex regional pain syndrome, a chronic nerve pain condition that spread beyond the original site, along with post-traumatic stress disorder. She could no longer meet the shipboard requirement of lifting fifty pounds and did not return to work at sea.
She sued under the Jones Act and the general maritime law of unseaworthiness, which together hold a shipowner responsible for crew injuries caused by negligence or by unsafe equipment. Her lawyers, Deborah Gander and Susan Carlson of Colson Hicks Eidson, with Tonya Meister of Meister Law, tried the case in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court over about three weeks in 2018. They pointed to a pattern: twelve other crew members had suffered similar hand injuries in the three years before hers. Royal Caribbean was represented at trial by Horr Novak & Skipp.
The jury found the cruise line fully liable on both theories and returned $20.3 million. That was $6 million for past pain and suffering, $6 million for future pain and suffering, $7 million for future medical expenses, $500,000 in lost earnings and $800,000 in lost earning capacity. Royal Caribbean said it disagreed with the verdict and would appeal.
The trial judge trimmed the future medical award by $833,533, to $6,166,467, which produced a judgment of $19,466,467. Royal Caribbean appealed, with Holland & Knight arguing for it. On April 28, 2021, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal affirmed liability but sent the case back for a new hearing on the reduction, because the trial court had not applied the factors that Florida Statute 768.74(5) requires. The outcome of that hearing could not be found in public records.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. v. Spearman, No. 3D18-2188 (Fla. 3d DCA Apr. 28, 2021)·Archived copy
- 2.Daily Business Review, 'Jury Hits Royal Caribbean Cruises With $20.3M Verdict for Ex-Officer's Hand Injury', June 4, 2018·Archived copy
- 3.Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. v. Lisa Spearman, 3D18-2188 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021), CourtListener
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