Cruise ship survivors offered $14,454 compensation

Italian courts ?

That comedy show will take years...

I'd take it.

By the time the lawyers win they might get $500 a piece after lawyer fees.

What a joke - it's just like the insurance agents who show up at your door a week after a car accident here, offering a quick cash settlement. It's only being offered because the insurance company wants to minimize damages as they well know that the longer it takes to deal with the claim, the higher the likelihood that damages will go through the roof.

When I was in high school, a friend's mom's car was rear-ended by another car at a red light and the defendant's insurance company tried for months to get her to take a quick payout, whih she refused on the advice of her lawyer. After she got out of the hospital, she suffered from back pain so bad that it eventually required near constant use of a wheelchair. The insurance company wound up paying her several hundred thousand dollars when it was settled a couple years later, instead of the paltry $5,000 they offered immediately.

I'd stick it out and wait for the class action in Miami to be settled if I was unfortunate to have been a passenger on that ship. Who knows what kind of trauma this will cause down the road?

I agree, you never accept the first offer, but you have to be careful with class actions if they get too big. If the class is so large that it ends up bankrupting the company, the creditors get fucked, That's what happened with the Corning breast implant class. Too many plaintiffs, too large a financial package and the victims end up getting only a fraction of their award. I think, if I were one of the majority of passengers whose only real injury was a ruined holiday, I'd make a quick counter-offer: "14K won't do it, but I'll take $20K to settle right now".

There should be a difference made between people who "only" suffered from being scared and loss of possessions, and people who are actually injured or lost loved ones.

I also read somewhere that the first fake victims made themselves heard and wanted $110K. Hungarians who claimed they were on board while they were not and never booked that trip.

There should be no award for being scared. Replace possessions, refund ticket price, pay for hotels transportation as needed. Throw in some counseling sessions if they insist. But big awards should only go for real injuries.

There is a difference, that package was offered only to uninjured passengers,

and not to anyone who has a dead family member.

Reading the article will help out lots.





As far as the Hungarians, one word.............................. Gypsies.

There is a difference, that package was offered only to uninjured passengers,

and not to anyone who has a dead family member.

Reading the article will help out lots.


Thanks Mr. Smartypants, I did read the article and the comment I made was made in general. There are so many lawyers who are starting law suits right now. Lawyers in Germany, Miami, Hungary, there are plenty.



Absolutely. They are still the biggest scammers in Europe, if you forget about Berlusconi

In this case I say bullshit. Those people had their lives put at risk not once but because the captain was a fucking idiot. I dunno about you but I'd consider having to bail from an ocean liner to be "trauma". Trauma brought on by gross criminal negligence. And trauma can easily turn into PTSD which can affect people in the most messed up ways.
If this had simply been an accident, I'd agree with you. But from what I've read, the captain knowingly and willingly took the ship OUT of marked shipping lanes. It can't even be blamed on carelessness, it was a conscious decision.
Then, to top it off, he bailed on the passengers instead of doing not just his job, but his duty as captain.

PTSD is just as real an injury, and sometimes even worse, than any physical injury.

Odd that you should be the conservative here and me the liberal. (Taking a cue from the other topic on that subject).

I thought about that as I was writing. But these days everybody and his dog has PTSD. If you got in a lifeboat, you probably didn't get severe enough trauma to get PTSD. Payment for PTSD should be based on stringent criteria. And, make some of that money only available for therapy - not some lump sum and the person goes off whistling.

I'll concur with that caveat on the award money.

Forgive me on this, but having seen troops with PTSD (and myself, to a far lesser extent) I know it to be a very real thing.

And this was a bunch of civilians in what was ostensibly a very relaxed situation and suddenly they're confronted with a very real and very dangerous life and death situation.

Troops are at least expecting bad things to happen and I believe that lessens the impact of PTSD somewhat. This was a boatload of people most of whom had probably lived their lives up to that point without experiencing a significant crisis. Then they're thrust into the same situation as a sailor in WW2 would have experienced after his ship was torpedoed. And without the training.

So, yeah, I think a number of them will come away from this more than a little screwed up.

You were travelling on a ship, over water. What did you think could happen?