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Jocelyn2003 wrote:

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this whole thing is awful, if it happened; however, it makes no sense (other than deep pockets) to sue the cruise line or sixthman.

it's making my rusty legal gears turn and in my unlicensed, juris doctorate-holding opinion, this case won't fly if its only grounds are that carnival should have had security cameras in the lounge. aside from the fact that there's no reasonable expectation that a lounge should have security cameras, according to the article, the plaintiff contends that security cameras would have prevented her rape. having the whole thing on film wouldn't have prevented its occurence, unless they had some sort of watchman and that just seems ludicrous to me.

again, it is awful if it happened and i hope they capture the guy who raped her, but i think the grounds are pretty shaky.

~jocelyn

Ahhhh...Torts I. Combined with the jurisdictional problems and the potential contractual constraints, we have a first-year of law school smorgasbord here. You are right - no proximate cause, no foreseeability, very shaky legal ground, if any. I concur - if it's not thrown out on a procedural technicality, there's always good old Rule 12(b)(6)...

baltoboy wrote:

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Gloria Allred is a crusader more than an attorney - she's not who you go to if you want to win a case (or in this case get a settlement - which is what she'll get, ignoring the procedural pitfalls, she'll (simplistically) have to show that were it not for Carnival & Sixthman's inaction she would not have been assaulted) she can find a decent attorney locally. Allred is there in a way to bring attention to the case either to a) get Carnival is beef up security or b) maximize the settlement amount.

Well put.

CaitSings wrote:

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you know, i'm just a little confused how they would build a case against carnival and sixthman. she claims there weren't security cameras in the club and that there wasn't enough security?? every time i turned around i ran into a security guard and i'm very curious how they expect to see ANYTHING on a club video camera anyway...besides some bad, blurry dancing and people having too many drinks. of course, it's horrible if it did indeed happen, but how is it either carnival or sixthman's faults??

Don't have to prove fault in a negligence case - there just has to be enough evidence to prove that the defendants failed in their duty of care to that particular passenger. The issue of course, is whether Carnival or Sixthman in fact, owed a duty of care to the passenger, the parameters of that duty, and the reasonable foreseeability of the incident.