Injured cruise ship passengers.

• Author: Karatinos, Nicholas E.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

Kudos to Michael D. Eriksen for his outstanding article on "U.S. Maritime Public Policy Versus Adhoc Federal Forum Provisions in Cruise Tickets" (December 2006).

As noted in the article, the cruise ship companies increase the costs of litigation and seek to deprive injured cruise passengers of a state court forum with right to jury trial by seeking to remove them to the admiralty side of federal court. Carnival relies upon an unpublished "Order Granting Defendant's Motion to Dismiss" by Senior Judge Herbert Stettin, 11th Judicial Circuit, in a case styled Julia Yarwood v. Carnival Corp., Case No. 03-7818 CA-08, Sept. 5, 2003, enforcing the cruise ticket forum clause, and finding that the injured passenger has a...