Over the course of eight and a half hours, a nurse from Northern California jumped between bars on a Friday evening while sailing on a Carnival Cruise vacation.
As the ship visited Baja California, Diana Sanders of Vacaville sampled tequila shots — 14 or 15 total — from six ship taverns, tequilas and pubs, according to court documents.
According to court documents, shortly after her final drink, Sanders stammered and fell down the stairs, “waving, stuttering.” She said she suffered serious injuries and filed a lawsuit against Florida-based Carnival Corp., saying the ship’s crew was negligent and served excessive drinks.
A Miami-Dade County jury this month agreed with the 45-year-old, finding Carnival 60% responsible for negligence and awarding Sanders a $300,000 verdict.
“It felt amazing,” Sanders said of the win. “So, I was really pleased when I looked at the jury of my peers and I felt like the whole time they saw what the defense was trying to do, how they tried to discredit my character.”
Carnival did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.
The lawsuit says Sanders was served approximately 14 alcoholic beverages between 2:58 p.m. and 11:37 p.m., while Sanders’ attorney Spencer Aronfeld said in a social media post that his client downed 15 drinks.
Although the numbers may be in dispute, Sanders’s actions were not contested.
According to the lawsuit, she was said to be “slurring her speech, having alcohol on her breath and behaving aggressively when she was serving crew members”.
According to court documents, Sanders fell between 11:45 p.m. and 12:20 a.m. while attempting to climb down the stairs.
Sanders suffered injuries that included a concussion, headache, possible traumatic brain injury, back and tailbone injuries, and extreme mental distress.
“It was extremely frustrating to wake up after the blackout and have to go to the crew and ask them for help and tell me what happened,” Sanders said in a social media post. “They gave me conflicting information. They treated me like a criminal. I was very worried that they wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened to me.”
The lawsuit claimed that it was Carnival’s responsibility to “monitor and/or assist passengers aboard the ship who Carnival knew, or should have known, were engaging in, or likely to engage in, potentially dangerous behavior to themselves or others on board the ship.”
The lawsuit states that crew members continued to serve Sanders “until the time she became intoxicated.”
“Passengers have a responsibility to drink responsibly, but cruise lines also have a responsibility to serve responsibly,” Aronfeld. Said in a social media post. “When you serve someone who is clearly intoxicated, repeatedly, it can have devastating consequences.”
