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Law360 (November 6, 2020, 5:43 PM EST) -- A Florida federal judge on Thursday rejected an $875,000 settlement that would have ended a proposed class suit accusing Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line of effectively holding crewmembers hostage on board its ships without pay for months on end beginning at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a brief docket order, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom rejected a request for preliminary approval of the class settlement and ordered the plaintiffs to file a second amended complaint no later than Nov. 16. The order came after a hearing Thursday on the motion.
"The court provided the parties with some excellent suggestions and advice on how to improve and clarify the settlement, as well as how to improve the proposed notice, and the parties are discussing them now and will report back to the court accordingly," Adam Moskowitz, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, said.
Moskowitz told Law360 in August when the settlement was announced that the deal provided almost full relief for the crew for their lost hourly wages.
The suit, filed by Serbian casino dealer Dragan Janicijevic, claimed that Bahamas Paradise failed to satisfy contractual requirements to pay two months of wages or basic severance pay when it terminated crew members' contracts after the pandemic forced it to halt operations in March.
The complaint alleged that Bahamas Paradise pressured crew members to sign documents saying they were voluntarily electing to stay on board without pay by informing them that anyone who did not sign would not be entitled to work for the company after operations resume.
"This system of requiring crew members to work, without pay, is the equivalent of forced labor or peonage," the complaint said.
The lawsuit also claimed that Bahamas Paradise, which is incorporated in the Bahamas and has offices in New York and Florida, failed to timely repatriate crew members from its ships — the Grand Classica and the Grand Celebration — and misrepresented to crew members that it was making arrangements to do so.
"Remarkably, there are still crew members effectively held hostage on the [Grand Celebration, where crew members were consolidated]. This egregiously delayed repatriation is tantamount to false imprisonment of the crew," the complaint said in late August.
The suit brought claims for Jones Act negligence for failure to repatriate, breach of contract, forced labor, negligent misrepresentation, false imprisonment and multiple claims over unpaid wages.
An attorney for Bahamas Paradise declined to comment on Friday.
Janicijevic is represented by Michael A. Winkleman, Daniel W. Grammes and Andrew S. Freedman of Lipcon Margulies Alsina & Winkleman PA, and Adam Moskowitz and Howard M. Bushman of The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC.
Bahamas Paradise is represented by Jeffrey E. Foreman and Catherine J. MacIvor of Foreman Friedman PA.
The case is Janicijevic v. Classica Cruise Operator Ltd et al., case number 1:20-cv-23223, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
--Additional reporting by Nathan Hale. Editing by Steven Edelstone.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
