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Law360 (September 1, 2020, 10:44 PM EDT) -- A proposed class of Princess Cruise Line passengers have asked a California federal judge for certification of their suit alleging the company allowed them to board the Grand Princess ship despite knowing passengers from a previous voyage were suffering from COVID-19 symptoms.
Robert Archer and other named plaintiffs asked U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner on Monday to grant class certification in the proposed class action accusing Princess Cruise Lines Ltd. and its parent company Carnival Corp. of negligently exposing more than 2,400 passengers to the novel coronavirus on its Grand Princess vessel traveling from San Francisco to Hawaii.
The suit claims Princess knew that at least one passenger suffered from COVID-19 symptoms during a previous voyage to Mexico but didn't tell the next group of passengers who embarked Feb. 21. The passengers assert that 62 passengers who had traveled to Mexico — including two that were sick — and more than 1,000 crew members remained on board to travel to the ship's next destination in Hawaii.
Despite this, no medical screenings for disembarking or embarking passengers were put in place and no efforts were made to sanitize or disinfect the ship before new passengers arrived, according to the complaint. The passengers were only made aware of the risks when they were informed March 4 that a passenger from the previous voyage had died, according to court papers.
"Defendants effectively trapped class members on the Grand Princess for weeks, without warning them of the risks of contracting and spreading COVID-19, without providing appropriate personal protective equipment, and without taking other effective measures to prevent the spread of the virus," Monday's filing said.
The passengers said class certification is justified because "individual litigation would require the court to hear potentially thousands of cases that raise the same questions of law and fact," according to the motion.
In addition, the passengers said their claims are typical because they all suffered exposure to COVID-19 for the same length of time on board the ship and were subject to the same lack of screening procedures and forced to remain confined to their rooms until finally being allowed to dock in Oakland on March 9.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Mary Alexander, told Law360 on Tuesday that they are hopeful the case will receive class certification.
"We feel strongly that the class should be certified," she said. "There are questions of fact that are common to all the people who were on the ship; they were all exposed to the virus and were in the zone of danger and placed there by Princess, who knew that their ship had been contaminated."
Alexander added that Princess and Carnival's argument that the passenger contract bars plaintiffs from suing via class action doesn't pass muster because the contract is unconscionable and unenforceable.
"They had people sign up and pay money and then sent them a contract which says, 'Oh, by the way, you can't file a class action,'" she said. "We believe it's unconscionable and unenforceable and was not reasonably communicated to the passengers before they bought their tickets."
Attorneys for the other parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Princess has been hit with a wave of suits claiming the company knowingly let its Grand Princess vessel set sail on a voyage the same day passengers who had COVID-19 symptoms disembarked from the ship's previous voyage.
In July, the cruise line was hit with another class action alleging that a COVID-19 outbreak on a March cruise left at least two dead and passengers trapped in their cabins for days.
Princess recently escaped two suits in California federal court after a judge said the passengers can't recover damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress just because they were afraid of contracting the virus.
The plaintiffs are represented by Elizabeth J. Cabraser, Jonathan D. Selbin and Mark P. Chalos of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; Mary E. Alexander and Brendan D.S. Way of Mary Alexander & Associates PC; Gretchen M. Nelson and Carlos F. Llinas Negret of Nelson & Fraenkel LLP; and Joseph G. Sauder of Sauder Schelkopf LLC.
Princess is represented by Jeffrey B. Maltzman, Rafaela P. Castells, Edgar R. Nield and Gabrielle De Santis Nield of Maltzman & Partners PA.
Carnival is represented by Jonathan W. Hughes and Angel Tang Nakamura of Arnold & Porter.
The case is Robert Archer et al. v. Carnival Corp. and PLC et al., case number 2:20-cv-04203, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
--Additional reporting by Lauren Berg. Editing by Abbie Sarfo.
Update: This article has been updated to include additional plaintiffs' counsel.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
