By Samantha Joseph, From Daily Business Review

A Miami jury awarded nearly $2 million to a former Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. crew member whose kidney failed while working aboard an ill-fated European cruise.

Teresa Di Trapani of Canada accused the Miami-based company of negligence for allegedly failing to provide prompt and adequate medical care when her right kidney failed. She filed a Jones Act negligence suit under the federal law that protects workers injured at sea.

She blamed RCCL for failing to do any diagnostic testing in 2004 when she was treated in Miami at the cruise line’s expense for hypertension and proteinuria, a potential early sign of kidney damage indicated by abnormal quantities of protein in urine.

Her treating physicians recommended further testing and a referral to a nephrologist for follow-up care, but Trapani said the company never informed her, and she went about five years without follow-up.

In October 2009, she was on Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas when severe abdominal and flank pain forced her into a hospital when the ship docked in Portugal.

“The plaintiff, who does not speak Portuguese and who was not accompanied by a port agent, was released from the hospital in Portugal and brought her medical paperwork back to her physicians on the Independence of the Seas,” according to the complaint filed Oct. 19, 2012. “The physicians on the Independence of the Seas could not interpret the Portuguese medical records and told the plaintiff to go to her cabin and rest. Plaintiff was given morphine at that time in an attempt to alleviate her symptoms.”

Trapani stayed in bed for two days until she was taken off the ship for medical care in Spain, where she was hospitalized and diagnosed with a spontaneous perirenal hematoma, or blood clots in the right kidney. She was later sent home to Canada, where doctors discovered a tumor and removed part of the kidney.

Trapani developed an umbilical hernia and a right-flank incisional lumbar hernia after the nephrectomy, according to court filings.

“As a result of the defendant’s negligence and failure to provide her with prompt, adequate and appropriate medical care, the defendant suffered an angiomyolipoma tumor, which went undiagnosed and eventually ruptured,” the complaint stated. “At no time did plaintiff know or have reason to know that she was suffering from this physical condition until her injury.”

Her attorney, Sidney Goldberg of Miami personal injury law firm Goldberg & Hirsh, said the multiple medical procedures took a toll on Trapani, who gained about 80 pounds in less than two years.

In 2010, she paid about $95,000 out of pocket for weight-loss surgery to shed the excess pounds and increase her chances of success in surgery to repair the strangulated hernias the following year.

Goldberg teamed with Miami attorney Louis Vucci to represent Trapani in the litigation in the trial that ended Friday before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jerald Bagley.

‘Unforeseeable Causes’

In the end, the jury found Royal Caribbean’s negligence led to Trapani’s injury and held the cruise line operator fully at fault. It awarded more than $1.8 million in damages including $388,000 for past lost earnings, nearly $710,900 for loss of earning capacity, $95,000 for past medical expenses, $610,000 for pain and suffering, disability, physical impairment, disfigurement, mental anguish, inconvenience, aggravation of a disease or physical defect and loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life. It also awarded $92,250 for past maintenance and $95,000 for past cure.

Royal Caribbean, which has until Nov. 23 to file post-trial motions, plans to fight the award in post-trial motions, said company attorney Jerry Hamilton of Hamilton Miller & Birthisel in Miami.

“There were some significant errors committed by plaintiffs counsel in the case, and Royal Caribbean will be filing a motion for a new trial,” Hamilton told the Daily Business Review. He declined to elaborate. “I’m confident that the verdict will be overturned.”

In court filings, Royal Caribbean denied responsibility and argued the injuries were the “result of intervening and unforeseeable causes” against which the cruise line had no duty to protect Trapani.

It pointed to other parties, including Trapani herself, arguing the former employee did not “exercise ordinary care, caution or prudence for her welfare” and directly contributed to her own injuries. It accused Trapani of inflating her medical expenses and claimed her own negligence barred her from claiming damages.

“Royal Caribbean’s care of Ms. Trapani was proper and adequate,” Hamilton said.

The cruise line urged the jury to reduce any potential award because she failed to take mitigating action. For instance, Trapani declined when the company offered her job back.

Goldberg said the cruise line offered re-employment only in the hope of mitigating its losses after initially telling Trapani her lifting restrictions meant she no longer met Coast Guard requirements for participating in emergency exercises.

“It was a good verdict, and I think the judge will substantiate it,” Vucci said.

IMAGE: Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas cruise-ships.com

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