Sydney:
Carnival Corp’s Australian unit has been ordered to pay the medical costs of a woman who contracted COVID-19, with a judge ruling the cruise ship operator misled passengers about safety risks in a landmark class action ruling.
The Australian Federal Court’s decision is the first class action victory against a cruise ship operator in the world, according to Shine Lawyers, which represents about 1,000 plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Judge Angus Stewart found that Carnival Australia had misled passengers about the measures it had taken to prevent passengers from contracting the virus and that it should have canceled the March 2020 return trip from Sydney to New Zealand.
Lead prosecutor Susan Karpik was awarded A$4,423.48 ($2,826) for out-of-pocket medical costs, but no damages.
The courts must now decide the common claims of the remaining parties to the class action, a spokesperson for Shine Lawyers told Reuters.
“It is of course only a partial victory, as 28 lives were lost during this cruise,” Karpik said in a statement.
“There are many individuals and families who will never be able to cope with this loss.”
Karpik, who had been a passenger on Ruby Princess with her husband Henry, had claimed more than A$360,000, partly due to the psychological distress of her husband’s two-month hospitalization with the virus.
Carnival Australia said in a statement it was reviewing the ruling in detail.
The Ruby Princess was for a time Australia’s biggest source of COVID infections after 2,651 passengers, many of whom felt unwell, were allowed to leave the ship, spreading the virus across the country and internationally.
Ultimately, about 900 cases and 28 deaths are believed to be linked to the outbreak.
A 2020 public inquiry into the outbreak concluded that New South Wales state health officials made “inexcusable” mistakes when allowing passengers to disembark.
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