Travel Law News

March 18, 2009 (by Aaron Marcus)

In the wake of the March 5-6, 2009 alleged rape on the Princess Cruise Liner, Coral Princess, lawmakers have introduced a cruise safety bill. I have been following this event since it occurred and so far it appears that a Princess Cruise ship waiter was charged with sexual assault by the FBI, and is awaiting trial in Central District Federal Court in Los Angeles County after the alleged passenger rape.

In recent years the cruise ship industry has faced criticism in high profile cases such as missing passengers and sexual attacks, while at sea. The cruise safety bill introduced Thursday will require the 38 billion dollar industry to report crimes at sea, to improve ship safety and to employ doctors that have training in assault examinations. Cruise ship doctors would also need to be U.S. licensed.

Princess cruise ship rape lawyer, Michael Ehline, a past contributor to Tanner and Haley News, based in Los Angeles, California, says the cruise safety bill is probably too little too late. In my interview with Ehline on March 15, 2009, I asked Ehline various questions as follows:

Q: Do you represent the victim of the Coral Princess alleged sexual assault?

Ehline: I have no comment as to who I do or do not represent at this time. It is the policy of the Ehline firm not to make a public spectacle out of cruise ship rape victims. However, I will say this, we don’t typically go to the national media and do press releases, or use celebrity attorneys to generate business.

We try and keep a low profile, meet the victim at the port of call here in Los Angeles, as our offices are just minutes away.  We try and get them away from the press and help the victim get the psychological support he or she needs. We also try and work to help the California federal prosecutors gather evidence, which hopefully will lead to a conviction of the rapist.

Q: Don’t you think not going to the press and identifying the victim will make it harder to get compensation for rape victims?

Ehline: On the contrary, I think attorneys who do that are shortsighted in their thinking. It can easily make a judge or jury think the victim is not really a victim at all. The only time I think the press is useful is to help effectuate new regulations, and to discredit the stories in the press that try and demonize the rape victims. Most of what I have seen online, or on the news generated by law firms, appears to be more hype and an attempt to get cases.

Q: What is the first thing a cruise ship rape victim should do?

Ehline: Well it depends. They are typically not in the right frame of mind to think clearly. But as a general rule, they need to contact the FBI immediately, and tell someone they trust about what happened to make a record. They must preserve evidence also. They should notify ship security as well as the ship’s doctor.

The dilemma here is that the cruise lines are common carriers and responsible for what happens on the ship. In other words, they are legally liable for the rape in most cases. So telling the defendant what happened sort of leaves the victim open to problems.

For example, the defendant cruise ship can lie, make up stories, issue bogus statements to the press before the ship even arrives in port, say they closed off a crime scene when they did not, or say they followed protocol when they did not, and numerous other things to mitigate a potential lawsuit or influence the public and/or a jury. Honestly, knowing this, the first thing I would do is contact a maritime lawyer and have my lawyer notify the FBI.

Q: Is there anything particular a rape victim needs to be aware of when attempting to retain a lawyer?

Ehline: Well there are many, but the most important thing is to know where the venue is the victim needs to sue, and where the case will be prosecuted against the rapist. Princess Cruise Lines require that any lawsuits brought against them be brought in California, as part of their passage contract.

I have seen many cases where the victim will hire an out of state lawyer to represent them who is not even licensed to practice law in the State of California. The cruise lines typically won’t offer as good of a settlement to an out of state lawyer in my opinion, because they don’t know California law, and the out of state attorney will have to associate another lawyer licensed in California to do the case here if it is against Princess.

So this means the out of state lawyer will have to refer the case to a lawyer here and share his or her fee. You tell me what you think is going to happen? Maybe they take the cheap settlement rather than share a larger one? It evens out and the client suffers.

The next issue is the criminal matter. How is a lawyer 3000 miles away going to attend the criminal matters and help the victim at the sentencing hearing of the criminal? And if your lawyer tells you a criminal conviction is not important, that is a sign that he or she doesn’t have a clue. The criminal conviction vindicates the victim and should easily lead to a quick and painless out of court settlement.

Q: What about the proposed legislation:

Ehline: Well what gets me angry is that there are already laws on the books. Look, the bulk of the cruise ships are registered in foreign countries, the companies are able to avoid paying income tax and they do not have to comply with the U.S. labor laws.

The recent bill that was introduced by Rep. Doris Matsui Democrat, Sacramento and Sen. John F. Kerry Democrat from Massachusetts requires that security latches and peepholes will need to be installed on cruise ships. How would a peephole have helped the most recent victim, when it is a crew member who is accused?

I agree about the guardrails, which will also need to be raised to the height of 54 inches.

Cruise ships will have to report some crimes to the FBI and to the Coast Guard according to this new bill. Rep Matsui stated that people going on cruises should be as safe as the can be and should feel safe. But my understanding that reporting sexual assault is that is already the law! After all the men overboard, all the rapes and cover ups, I just think this is way too little, way too late. Hiring cheap laborers from foreign countries who do not respect American cultural values, or laws, although not a politically correct thing to say, I believe is the major problem with cruise ships. I do not see that being addressed anywhere in any legislation. Foreigners need to be trained and educated as to what is legal and what is illegal and there need to be better background checks.  How do you know who these people are?

Q: Thank you for the interview.

Ehline: Your welcome.

After interviewing attorney Ehline, I did some additional research and found that Rep. Matsui has been fighting for cruise ship changes since being told by a constituent that she had been raped on a Royal Caribbean cruise and Matsui asked for congressional hearings. This was after Matsui contacted the cruise lines who stated they could not install peepholes.

One woman who testified before congress, Laurie Dishman, staed she was raped in 2004 on a Royal Caribbean cruise. She went on to testify that when she complained to cruise officials they stated she needed to control her drinking. When she went to the ships doctor instead of conducting a rape examination she was given two garbage bags and told to collect her own evidence. The U.S. Attorneys Office declined to prosecute the case after Dishman had been raped by one of the ship employees.

According to one statement by Kendall Carver the president and founder of the International Cruise Victims, the cruise industry need more oversite. Carver’s daughter disappeared off of an Alaska cruise in 2004.

Thursday the Cruise Lines International Association released a statement that their highest priority is the passenger’s safety and security. They also stated the incidents that are brought up in the bill of missing passengers and sexual assaults are rare. In their statement they say they are already required to report crimes by law and they have a voluntary agreement with the Coast Guard and the FBI.

Carver stated that the crimes keep going on and the recent rape case took the FBI two days to board the ship and if it had occurred in Los Angeles the police would have been waiting for the woman at the hospital. This was a rape reported by a passenger on the George from Portugal from Florida to Los Angeles on March 6. The ship involved was the Coral Princess and the man suspected of the rape was a cruise ship employee. We hope that this legislation argued by California Cruise Ship Rape Lawyer Ehline as being too little too late is a step in the right direction.