ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES FORUM SELECTION CLAUSE, SELECTING MIAMI, FLORIDA, UPHELD BY COURT
ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES FORUM SELECTION CLAUSE, SELECTING MIAMI, FLORIDA, UPHELD BY COURT DISMISSING PASSENGERS CLAIM IN CALIFORNIA DESPITE LAPSING OF STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS TO REFILE SUIT IN MIAMI, FLORIDA
TERUO WATANABE et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES, LTD., Defendant and Respondent.
B146759
COURT OF APPEAL OF CALIFORNIA, SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT, DIVISION ONE
2001 Cal. App. LEXIS 2654
November 28, 2001, Filed
PRIOR HISTORY: APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. (Super. Ct. No. KC 032144). Karl W. Jaeger, Judge.
DISPOSITION: Affirmed.
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: The Superior Court granted defendant cruise ship operator's motion to dismiss based on forum selection clause inserted within its passenger cruise tickets requiring a passenger to bring suit in a court in Miami, Florida.
OVERVIEW: Passsengers aboard defendant's cruise ship filed suit against the cruise line after the ship struck a reef during the cruise, forcing the passengers to abandon ship. Plaintiffs filed suit in California state court despite defendant's forum selection clause, inserted within its brochure and passenger tickets, selecting the court's of Miami, Florida to the exclusion of all other courts. Forum selection clauses are presumed valid. The party resisting the clause's application bears the "heavy" burden of showing enforcement is unreasonable under the circumstances to overcome the presumption. The passenger need not have actually read or been aware of the provision to be bound by it, so long as he had an opportunity to review the contract. Contractual clauses have been affirmed where the passenger never opened the ticket packet before boarding. Here, plaintiffs received the tickets seven days before the cruise. Plaintiffs did not claim they would have tried to book a different cruise had they known before then of the forum selection clause. Plaintiffs' arguments all involve the inconvenience of litigating the case in Florida, and their unwillingness to pursue paying Florida counsel, apparently due to the estimated return from the case's property loss and personal injury causes of action. Those factors do not support invalidating the forum selection clause. Further, plaintiffs unquestionably knew or should have known about the forum selection clause after their cause of action arose and before the Florida limitations period expired. Although plaintiffs declared they did not read the forum selection clause before losing their tickets while abandoning ship, they never claimed they did not know of the clause before the Florida limitations period lapsed.
OUTCOME: The granting of defendant's motion to dismiss was affirmed.
