Breaking Travel News (press release)
Survivors of the Costa Concordia grounding off the Tuscan coast of Italy in January 2012 won a huge victory in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida last week, when the District Judge ordered the claims of 104 survivors …
Survivors of the Costa Concordia grounding off the Tuscan coast of Italy in January 2012 won a huge victory in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida last week, when the District Judge ordered the claims of 104 survivors remanded to the Florida State Court for continued litigation. The court’s February 15, 2013 order concerned two cases, Denise Abeid-Saba, et al., v. Carnival Corporation et al., and Scimone v. Carnival Corp., together representing the claims of 104 plaintiffs injured when the huge ship capsized after grounding on rocks just off the shore of Isola del Giglio.
Both cases were initially commenced in the Florida State Court against Carnival Corp. as the parent corporation as well as ship designers and the architect. The cases were removed to the Federal Court by the defendants under the CLASS ACTION FAIRNESS ACT OF 2005 (“CAFA”), which allows for the removal of so-called “mass actions” to the federal courts. As the District Court noted, however, the CAFA expressly excludes those cases that are consolidated by a defense motion to achieve the CAFA minimum of 100 plaintiffs. Since neither the Abeid-Saba action nor the Scimone action contained 100 plaintiffs, the Court held that neither was amenable to removal under CAFA. Defendants also plead “federal question” jurisdiction as a second basis for removal; the District Court rejected this argument as well, holding that the interests in the litigation of the Italian government, which took no position in the litigation and neither owned nor operated the doomed vessel, were “speculative at best.” A copy of the decision can be obtained by contacting the law firms.
Costa Concordia victims have jurisdiction victory in Florida Breaking Travel News
