By Caroline Simson

Law360 (July 6, 2020, 5:53 PM EDT) -- Celebrity Cruises is looking to send into arbitration a lawsuit filed by a pair of Filipino crew members, who want to represent some 1,700 Filipino workers who were allegedly forced to remain on board without pay after the cruise industry was shut down due to COVID-19.

The cruise line argued before a Florida federal court on Monday that former employees Ryan Maunes Maglana and Francis Karl Bugayong agreed to arbitrate any dispute arising under their employment contract in the Philippines under Philippine law.

Maglana and Bugayong allege in their suit that they have been held on the Celebrity Millennium without pay since being fired on March 30. The complaint includes allegations that the cruise line went "beyond all bounds of decency" by holding them and other Filipino workers on board and preventing them from going home, repeatedly scheduling trips home for the crew that are then canceled due to the "fabricated narrative" that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is barring them from going home.

The two former crew members said they anticipated that the cruise line would probably try to "evade any type of governmental oversight or public scrutiny" by pointing to the arbitration provision, which they say is unenforceable since Celebrity has breached the agreement by not paying them.

But Celebrity fired back on Monday that the only way to avoid arbitration is to show that an underlying arbitration agreement is invalid.

"Plaintiffs' personal wish for government oversight and public scrutiny of their claims and/or Celebrity is not among the limited defenses that can be asserted or considered at this arbitration-enforcement stage," according to Celebrity's brief.

Counsel for the parties couldn't immediately be reached for comment Monday.

Maglana, who worked as a "beverage controller," and Bugayong, who worked as a "bar storekeeper," accuse Celebrity in their June amended complaint of making a "callous and inhumane" decision to keep Filipino crew members on board its ships after the CDC ordered the cruise ship industry to shut down on March 14.

They claim to have been "held captive" on the Celebrity Millennium even after they were fired and the passengers disembarked "with no wages and no hopes of going home to family members in need."

Maglana has been held on the passenger-less ship since Feb. 10, according to the suit. At that time, only Vietnam and Singapore would allow the ship to dock after it was rejected from Hong Kong and Thailand. The ship eventually sailed to the Philippine capital of Manila on Feb. 19, but Maglana and Bugayong were "cruelly" prevented from getting off the ship, the suit claims.

Only those crew members whose contracts had concluded were allowed to go home, as long as there was a suitable replacement crew member on board.

The ship continued on to Honolulu and then on to Baja California on March 11. But nearly 1,000 Filipino crew members were not allowed to disembark, despite the fact that the cruise industry is currently shut down, according to the suit. Maglana and Bugayong allege that since they were fired on March 30, they have been held on the ship without pay.

The litigation includes claims that Celebrity has falsely imprisoned the workers, discriminated against them as Filipinos and caused emotional distress. The workers are asking the court to order Celebrity to send them all home and to award unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Ryan Maunes Maglana and Karl Francis Bugayong are represented by Raul G. Delgado II of Delgado Trial Attorneys.

Celebrity Cruises is represented by Jerry D. Hamilton, Evan Gutwein, Annalisa Gutierrez and Gilda M. Chavez of Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP and Sanford L. Bohrer, Alex M. Gonzalez and Scott D. Ponce of Holland & Knight LLP.

The case is Maglana v. Celebrity Cruises Inc., case number 1:20-cv-22133, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

--Editing by Bruce Goldman.

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