03-1799 TANANTA V. CRUISE

SUPREME COURT CASES

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State: Florida

Court: Florida Third District Court

Docket No: 03-1799 TANANTA V. CRUISE

Case Date: 12/22/2004

Preview:NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DISPOSED OF. IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA THIRD DISTRICT JULY TERM A.D., 2004 ** ** Appellants/Appellees, vs. CRUISE SHIPS CATERING AND SERVICES INT'L., N.V., et al., Appellees/Appellants. RENE E. CHAMO, Appellant/Petitioner, vs. COSTA CROCIERE, S.p.A., etc., et al., Appellees/Respondents. FERNANDO SIMPSON, Appellant/Petitioner, vs. COSTA CROCIERE, S.p.A., etc., et al., Appellees/Respondents. ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** CASE NO.: 3D03-700 99-21309 CASE NO.: 3D02-2633 LOWER TRIBUNAL NO. 97-607 CASE NO.: 3D03-1799 Consolidated: 3D02-2788 3D03-563 3D03-1719 3D03-2034 3D03-2249 3D03-2075 LOWER TRIBUNAL NO. 00-31676

ORIEL TANANTA, et al.,

LOWER TRIBUNAL NO.

Opinion filed December 22, 2004. Appeals from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Ronald M. Friedman, Norman S. Gerstein, and Paul Siegel, Judges. The Watford Law Firm and Rebecca B. Watford; J.M. Perez, Jr.; David H. Pollack; Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, P.A.; and J.H. Zidell, for appellants/appellees, Tananta. McAlpin & Brais, P.A., and Richard J. McAlpin; Robert S. Glazier, James J. Feeney; Russell M. Pfeifer, for appellee/appellants, Cruise Ships Catering and Services. McCormick & Koretzky; Philip D. Parrish, for appellant, Chamo. McAlpin & Brais, P.A., and Richard J. McAlpin; Russell Pfiefer, for appellee, Costa Crociere. Elizabeth K. appellant, Simpson. Russo; Rivkind, Pedraza J. & Margulies, Robert for S.

McAlpin & Brais, P.A., and Richard Glazier, for appellees, Costa Crociere.

McAlpin;

Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and COPE, LEVY, GERSTEN, GODERICH, GREEN, FLETCHER, RAMIREZ, WELLS and SHEPHERD, JJ. EN BANC SHEPHERD, J. This consolidated appeal involves the fate of five foreign seamen wishing to litigate their personal injury claims in

Miami-Dade County. whether Florida

We are confronted with a recurring question: taxpayers via our state court system are

required to provide a forum for the resolution of a personal injury claim by a foreign seaman who has had but a fleeting contact here and who is injured on a vessel far from our shores. 2

We

believe

this

question

has

been

answered

by

the

Florida

Supreme Court in Kinney Systems, Inc. v. Continental Ins. Co., 674 So. 2d 86 (Fla. 1996). We find that the seamen's individual

litigation must be housed elsewhere, and direct them to seek relief in their own country, Italy or the Netherlands Antilles. I. The Plaintiffs and their ties to South Florida Every seaman represented in this consolidated appeal is a foreign seaman injured on a foreign ship while in foreign or international waters. Oriel Tananta is a citizen and resident of Peru, who worked on the ship Costa Marina. He was an assistant waiter who

injured himself in February 2000 while the ship was off the coast of Argentina. and then in Peru. Luis Vega is a citizen and resident of Columbia. worked on the Costa Marina. He, too, He received medical treatment in Argentina,

He was injured in September 1996 He fell off his bunk

while the ship was off the coast of Italy. bed, injuring his shoulder.

Vega's roommates who witnessed the He filled out his Vega received

fall are of Honduran and Guatemalan descent.

accident form with the help of a Columbian friend.

medical treatment by the ship's doctor, an Italian national, and additional care in Italy. Eleuterio Honduras. Guzman Cruz is a citizen and resident of

He was a deck utility worker aboard the Costa Marina,

3

who injured his arm pulling up cable lines.

At the time of his

injury in September 2000, the ship was cruising in international waters. ship's Some doctors of his complaints Italian received and attention from the He

who

were

French

nationals.

subsequently received medical care for his arm in Estonia, and then returned to Honduras for further treatment. Fernando Simpson is a citizen and resident of Costa Rica, who worked on the ship Costa Allegra. He was a galley worker His only eyewitness

who fell while trying to clean a large oven. was a Honduran shipmate. the ship was in

He was injured in November 1998 while from the Netherlands to Brazil.

transit

Following the accident, he left the ship and received medical treatment in Brazil. further medical care. Rene Chamo is a citizen and resident of Guatemala, who worked as a linen valet aboard the ship Costa Classica. He was He then returned home to Costa Rica for

injured lifting a mattress in September 1996 while the ship was sailing off of the Italian coast. He received care from the

ship's doctor, an Italian national, and then at a shore-side facility in Italy. He also returned home to Guatemala to

receive further medical attention. Each of these claimants has few, if any, ties to Florida. It appears that the seamen came through Miami during their preemployment medical screening, and executed their employment

4

contract homelands. care in

here,

as

opposed

to

in

each

of

their

respective medical only in

Additionally, Miami, but the

certain record

claimants suggests

received was

this

conjunction with or after each had retained or consulted with counsel here. II. The Defendants and their ties to Florida While some Costa vessels do on occasion enter the United States, the bulk (85%) of Costa's business comes from overseas. The Costa Classica (on which Chamo was injured) is a Liberianflagged vessel that does not regularly call on U.S. ports, and at no point during Chamo=s employment aboard the ship did the vessel call at a U.S. port. Indeed, there is no record evidence The Costa Marina

that the ship has ever been in a U.S. port.

(on which Tananta, Cruz and Vega were injured) was a Liberianflagged vessel; it has, however, subsequently been re-flagged under the laws of Italy. It continues to cruise between European

ports in the summertime and between South American ports in the wintertime. Similarly, there is no record evidence that either

the Costa Marina, or the Costa Allegra (Simpson's assigned ship) called on U.S. ports. In the same vein, the corporate entities behind these

vessels have equally sparse connections to the United States, and especially to Florida. Costa Classica are owned The Costa Marina, Costa Allegra, and by an Italian corporation, Costa

5

Crociere S.p.A., which has no offices or employees in Florida, and conducts its day-to-day business from its 450-employee

office in Genoa, Italy.1

Costa Crociere, S.p.A. markets its

Costa cruises in the United States through its North American general sales agent, Costa Cruise Lines, N.V., which is a

registered Netherlands Antilles corporation with offices located in Hollywood, Florida. Costa Cruise Lines, N.V. is one of eight

marketing companies worldwide, and its territory is not limited to the United Costa States, Rica, but also includes Nicaragua, Venezuela, Panama Canada, and the

Mexico,

Honduras,

Caribbean. Prestige Cruises N.V. is the bareboat charterer (owner pro hac vice) of these vessels, and has a registered office in

Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. Prestige shipboard Cruise Management of the

It contracts with a subsidiary S.A.M. hotel to and perform catering the actual

management

functions.

1

In September 2000, Carnival Corporation completed purchasing the stock of Costa Crociere. Since that time, "through an intermediary Italian holding company, Costa has been a fully owned subsidiary of Carnival Corporation, [which itself is] a Panamanian corporation with its principal place of business in Miami, Florida." Membreno v. Costa Crociere, S.p.A., No. 0361180-CIV, slip op. at 2 (S.D.Fla. Nov. 23, 2004). However, Carnival does not own, operate, charter or maintain the vessels involved here, nor did it employ or supervise the plaintiffs. As the Membreno court noted, Costa Crociere's "contacts with Carnival are arms-length transactions that are necessitated by the separate corporate structures." Id. 6

Neither States.

entity

has

any

employees

or

offices

in

the

United

Cruise

Ships

Catering

and

Services

International

N.V.

(hereafter "CSCS"), is also a Netherlands Antilles corporation that purports to have its principal place of business in

Curacao, Netherlands Antilles.

CSCS was responsible for hiring CSCS

and placing each of the claimants aboard one of the ships.

contracts with various independent contractors in Monaco with regard to the accounting and personnel related aspects of these vessels, and similarly contracts in large part with a Hollywood, Florida companyInternational administer medical Risk Services, and Inc. claims (hereafter for its

"IRSI")to

benefits

unlicensed crew member-employees.2 III. The Propriety of Applying Doctrine of Forum Non Conveniens and our precedent in Cruise Ships Catering and Services Int=l v. Tananta, 823 So. 2d 258 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002). Despite their tenuous connection to our shores, each of the foreign damages
2

seamen for

filed Jones

an Act

action

in

Miami-Dade

County

seeking and

negligence,

unseaworthiness,

Until mid-1999 C.S.C.S. Caribbean N.V., another Netherlands Antilles corporation with an office in Miami did recruiting for CSCS and, in fact, recruited the claimants here for employment aboard the Costa ships. Prior to being put into liquidation in that year, C.S.C.S. Caribbean N.V. was also responsible for employee medical care, and providing maintenance and cure. These third-party medical claims administrative duties were transferred to IRSI in June 1999. At or about the same time, the manning function was transferred to a Monaco company called Cruise Ships Catering Services Management S.A.M. 7

maintenance and cure.

The first of these cases that percolated

to this court on appeal was that of Peruvian Oriel Tananta. See Cruise Ships Catering and Servs. Int=l v. Tananta, 823 So. 2d 258 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002). that the Peruvian In that case, we applied Kinney to hold personal injury case required

seaman's

dismissal under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The four other seamen whose cases followed Tananta have suggested that our decision in Tananta was erroneous. They ask

that we suspend the natural working of Tananta on the grounds that we were misled about the corporate existence of the

defendant CSCS in that litigation. We have carefully reviewed the allegations of falsity made and the record supporting them, including affidavits,3 and find that the defendants-appellees (the same ones in Tananta as here)

The affiants for CSCS, Laurence Klutz and Alberto Sacconaghi, have sworn that Curacao, Netherlands Antilles is CSCS' principal place of business, when in reality, CSCS is registered there and no employees physically exist at their shell office space. While CSCS' statement is somewhat disingenuous, litigant misconduct can be policed through Fla. Stat.

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