A solicitor who was ordered off a cruise ship after telling a staff member “there may be a suicide” has been awarded €16,000 for the wrongful termination of her holiday contract.
Last February, a High Court jury found against Caroline Fanning, of Foxrock Avenue, Co Dublin, in her claim of false imprisonment on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in the summer of 2015.
On Wednesday, Mr Justice Alexander Owens ruled on a further element of her case and awarded her €10,000 for the breach of contract plus €5,963 for the cost of the lost holiday, alternative accommodation and other expenses incurred for the remainder of her trip.
Several members of staff from the Oasis of the Seas cruise ship previously told the court they believed Ms Fanning’s suicide comments during the early hours of August 9th, 2015, were a threat, while Ms Fanning said she was being sarcastic.
The ship’s suicide prevention protocol was triggered, and security personnel brought Ms Fanning and her 13-year-old daughter to a guarded cabin. At about 9am, a psychiatrist found she was fit to travel, but the captain decided she must leave the ship when it docked that morning in the Bahamas. She was not given a refund.
In agreeing with the jury’s decision, Mr Justice Owens believed the response of staff was reasonable up to the point that the psychiatrist assessed Ms Fanning and concluded she was not suffering from any mental health conditions.
There had been a “disruptive threat” or “intimation” of suicide during the night if she was not provided with a different hotel room, he said.
However, the threat had passed when the psychiatrist reported she was fit to travel, the judge said. It was not then necessary for the ship’s captain, Trym Selvag, to order the disembarkation of Ms Fanning and her 13-year-old daughter when the cruise docked in the Bahamas, he said.
The captain said he did not know what to believe about Ms Fanning, but he should have been guided by the professional view of the psychiatrist, Mr Justice Owens went on.
“Captains are not psychiatrists. That is the very reason why there needed to be a psychiatric evaluation,” the judge said, adding: “Otherwise what was the point of it?”
A passenger could have been ordered off the ship on account of egregious behaviour, the judge added. However, he did not believe Ms Fanning’s earlier conduct was sufficient to warrant a repudiatory breach of contract.
Ms Fanning’s High Court action was against Trailfinders Ireland Limited, a Dawson Street-based travel agent through which she booked the €3,700 package holiday, while RCL Cruises Limited was a third party in the action.
Legal costs
The legal costs associated with the case, which ran for several weeks with three barristers and a solicitor on each side, will dwarf the sum awarded to Ms Fanning.
The defendants’ senior counsel, David Conlan Smyth, instructed by Noble Shipping Law, said he will seek legal costs for the bulk of the trial, as his client successfully defended against the claim of false imprisonment, defamation and an application by Ms Fanning this week seeking a mistrial on the basis that one of the jurors previously worked in the cruise industry.
He said Ms Fanning would only be entitled to legal costs relating to the breach of contract claim, heard over a number of hours this week, and these would be at the lesser District Court level as the award is beneath the €60,000 threshold for claims in the High Court.
Barney Quirke SC, instructed by Conways Solicitors, for Ms Fanning, said his client’s case was necessitated by the defendants’ failure to address her claim. Mr Justice Owens agreed to his request for the legal costs issue to be considered at a later date.
During the trial, a jury heard Ms Fanning, who was feeling seasick on the night of August 9th, 2015, phoned the ship’s reception hoping she could be moved to a room less affected by the motion.
Ms Fanning claimed the receptionist mentioned a medical emergency, to which Ms Fanning responded “there may be one tomorrow” and “there may be a suicide”.
The receptionist claimed Ms Fanning repeated the comment three or four times during the phone call, while the ship’s deputy security officer alleged she later made another suicide threat to him. Ms Fanning denied this.
Security personnel brought Ms Fanning and her daughter to a guarded cabin without a balcony, which had been stripped of cutlery, hangers and other sharp objects.
The ship’s captain told the court he made a decision to disembark Ms Fanning, after she had been deemed fit to travel, on the advice of Royal Caribbean’s global security team. He said the company takes “no risks” in situations involving self-harm or violence.
The court heard Ms Fanning later complained to Trailfinders saying she felt she had been in “Guantánamo Bay not on a luxurious cruise”.
