Forum Selection Clause In Cruise Passenger Ticket Enforceable Despite Passengers Receiving The Ticket About 24 Days Before Cruise Began At A Time When Passengers Would Have Had To Forfeit A Portion Of Their Cruise Fare If They Rejected The Forum Selection
NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE, LTD., Appellant, v. MARILYN CLARK and RICHARD CLARK, Appellees.
Case No. 2D02-945
COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA, SECOND DISTRICT
2003 Fla. App. LEXIS 2876; 28 Fla. L. Weekly D 650
March 7, 2003, Opinion Filed
PRIOR HISTORY: Appeal from a nonfinal order of the Circuit Court for Pinellas County; Thomas F. Penick, Judge.
DISPOSITION: Reversed and remanded with instructions.
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Appellee cruise ship passengers sued appellant cruise ship line in the Circuit Court for Pinellas County (Florida) for negligence. The cruise ship line moved to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer the cause to the Circuit Court in Dade County, Florida. The trial court denied the motion. The cruise ship line appealed.
OVERVIEW: The passengers ordered and paid for tickets through their travel agent for a cruise on a ship owned and operated by the cruise line. The passengers received their tickets about 24 days before the cruise began. At the time they received their tickets, the passengers would have been required to forfeit a portion of their ticket purchase if they cancelled their tickets. The tickets contained a forum selection clause requiring that all claims, disputes, or controversies be commenced, filed, and litigated, if at all, before a court of proper jurisdiction located in Dade County, Florida. One of the passengers slipped and fell on wet decking the first day out during a mandatory lifeboat drill, injuring her leg and ankle. The passengers contended that because they received the tickets within the penalty period and would have forfeited an undetermined amount of the ticket price had they decided to cancel, the cruise line provided them with insufficient notice of the ticket's conditions so as to render the contract fundamentally unfair. On appeal, the court found that the forum selection clause was enforceable.
OUTCOME: The judgment was reversed, and the cause was remanded with instructions to transfer the cause to the Circuit Court in Dade County, Florida.
