New York , U.S.A. —  This week, victims of the doomed Costa Concordia Cruise Ship that capsized off the Italian coast in January filed a new Complaint against Miami headquartered Carnival Corp., the builder of the Costa Concordia, for product liability, against Carnival’s Miami-based architect for defective ship design and against Carnival for a pattern and practice of concealing and/or delaying notification of life threatening situations to passengers on board their cruise ships, amongst other causes of action. Another claim, alleging wrongful death on behalf of several other parties, is to be filed shortly.

The suit alleges that Carnival was aware that the ship’s hull design and power systems were defective. In February 2010 the hull of Carnival’s Costa Europa was punctured against a dock in Egypt creating a small hole, roughly 1/30th (6 feet) the size of the hole in the Costa Concordia’s hull, yet that ship flooded and listed severely at the cost of multiple lives. To date, the company refuses to publicly release the incident report that relates to the Europa accident.

In November 2010, Concordia’s sister ship the Carnival Splendor caught fire and was stranded off the coast of Mexico due to a catastrophic failure of a generator in one of the engine rooms. Splendor’s second generator, located in another engine room, should have kicked in but failed to work. At the time, Carnival Cruise Lines’ CEO Gerry Cahill was quoted in Travel Weekly: “Having two engine rooms like we do is pretty much the norm in the cruise industry”.

Cahill added that Carnival had determined that “there are certain things that we can do to increase the effectiveness of that redundancy.” Cahill also said that these lessons would likely be applied to Carnival’s sister brands in the Carnival Corp. group, but the Concordia was plagued by multiple electrical failures after the crash, causing tremendous loss of life and property, personal injury and terror for those on board.

Indeed, as Marc Jay Bern of Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik, LLP, co-lead attorney along with Mitchell Proner of Proner & Proner, representing Costa Concordia victims recently noted, “No one got off the Concordia unscathed. Even those who survived and avoided serious physical injuries will never be the same after the horror they lived through. These people trusted a well-known cruise industry brand and had every reason to believe they were in responsible and experienced hands but unfortunately that proved to be anything but the truth.”

Law firms Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik & Associates, LLP (with offices in New York and Florida) and New York-based Proner & Proner, along with the Italian firm CODACONS, are representing the plaintiffs in their litigation against the Carnival Group and the other responsible parties. At least $2 million dollars in compensation per passenger is sought and attorneys plan to request $590 million dollars in punitive damages.

The action, filed in State Court before the Florida Circuit Court (11th Judicial Circuit) in Miami-Dade County, Florida is against Carnival Corporation, Carnival Corporation & PLC, Costa Cruise Lines, Inc. and Costa Crociere SPA, are all registered in the State of Florida and face state law claims for Maritime Negligence, Gross Negligence, Negligence – Product Defect as to Carnival Corp., Professional Negligence of the Ship’s Architect, Intentional Failure to Warn, Intentional Failure to Abandon Ship, Intentional Failure to Notify Authorities, Corporate Pattern and Practice of failure to warn, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Negligent Retention (by the Cruise Line of Captain Schettino), Fraudulent Misrepresentation and Fraudulent Inducement.

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Following the tragic Costa Concordia accident, Carnival Corporation & plc, parent company of Costa Cruises and nine leading cruise lines around the world, announced a comprehensive audit and review of all safety and emergency response procedures across all of the company’s cruise lines.

Carnival Corporation & plc and the cruise industry as a whole have maintained an excellent safety record over the years.  “However, this tragedy has called into question our company’s safety and emergency response procedures and practices,” said Micky Arison, chairman and CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc. “While I have every confidence in the safety of our vessels and the professionalism of our crews, this review will evaluate all practices and procedures to make sure that this kind of accident doesn’t happen again.”

The review is being led by Captain James Hunn, a retired U.S. Navy Captain and currently the company’s senior vice president of Maritime Policy & Compliance.  Following a 32-year career in the Navy, Hunn has held senior positions at Carnival Corporation & plc for nearly a decade, focusing on corporate-wide efforts to establish maritime policy standards, while overseeing the company’s health, environmental, safety, and security practices.

Hunn and senior health and safety executives from each of the lines will review all safety and emergency response policies and procedures, officer and crew training and evaluation, bridge management, and company-wide response and support efforts. Hunn will report to the Health, Environment, Safety, & Security Committee of the Board and to Howard Frank, vice chairman and chief operations officer of Carnival Corporation & plc.

In addition, the Health, Environment, Safety, & Security Committee is engaging outside industry-leading experts in the fields of emergency response organization, training, and implementation to conduct an audit of all of the company’s emergency response and safety procedures and to conduct a thorough review of the Costa Concordia accident.

Frank said, “This company-wide initiative will identify lessons learned and best practices to further ensure the security and safety of all of our passengers and crew.”

Carnival Corporation & plc also supports the call for a comprehensive evaluation of safety regulations by the International Maritime Organization, which was requested by the Cruise Lines International Association.

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Friday’s cruise ship tragedy resulted in the death of 11 passengers and left 23 missing. The luxurious Italian cruiser with more than 4,200 people on board, partially sank off the Italian coast due to human errors by Captain Francesco Schettino, who had taken an “unapproved, unauthorized” route.

Peter Wild, a cruise industry consultant and former navigating officer said, “Human error or navigational error is a real possibility; those are the two most likely causes in general.” The ship’s captain was arrested on Saturday and according to CNN News, chief prosecutor Francesco Verusio said, “Capt. Francesco Schettino is under arrest and may face charges that include manslaughter, shipwreck, and abandoning a ship when passengers were still on board.”

USA Today reported that a coast guard official said, the exact details of the incident were still not clear; however, the first alarm rang at around 10:30 pm, almost three hours after the Concordia had started its journey from Civitavecchia’s port to its first destination, Savona, in northwestern Italy.

A loud bang was the first hint that something wasn’t right. “We were having supper when the lights suddenly went out, we heard a boom and a groaning noise, and the entire cutlery fell on the floor.” Luciano Castro told Italy’s Ansa news agency.

According to BBC News, the passengers were told that the ship was merely facing some electricity problems. However, Fabio Costa, the cruise ship shop worker, said, people started to panic in desperation when they realized that something was awfully wrong.

“Everybody was trying to get on the boats at the same time. When people had to get on the lifeboats they were pushing each other. It was a bit chaotic. We were trying to keep passengers calm but it was just impossible. Nobody knew what was going on,” Elizabeth Nanni of the Isola del Giglio Tourist Information described.

In a statement released on Sunday, Costa Cruises said, “We comply very strictly with all safety regulations and our personnel are committed, first and foremost, to guest safety and security. All crew members are trained in basic safety and emergency management, and their skills are tested periodically.” However, the survivors of the disaster had a different opinion. Vivian Safer, a passenger said, “There wasn’t anybody to help you; I mean, the passengers were loading the lifeboats by themselves.”

Michael Crye, executive vice president of the Cruise Line International Association believes that Costa Concordia had experienced a similar damage to that of Titanic. However, he said, “It’s too soon to know whether any new regulations are needed to avoid a disaster like this.”

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