Anchored in Controversy: Federal District Court Dismisses Shoreside Rape of a Cruise Passenger for Lack of Admiralty Jurisdiction

Doe v. Classica Cruise Operator Ltd., No. 24-CV-80738, 2024 WL 4198169; 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166210 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 19, 2024, Rosenberg, J.)

           On September 16, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Rosenberg dismissed Jane Doe’s claim against Classica Cruise Operator Ltd. and others for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.[1] Although the Court’s legal conclusion is likely correct—that admiralty jurisdiction cannot be exercised in this case[2]—the Court’s reasons for judgment is flawed.

           In her complaint, the Plaintiff alleged that she was raped by hotel staff while staying as a guest at Viva Fortuna Beach by Wyndham in The Bahamas.[3] Doe’s stay at the Resort occurred in the middle of her round-trip voyage from West Palm Beach to the Bahamas aboard the MARGARITAVILLE at Sea Paradise ship (operated by Classica Cruise Operator, LTD).[4]

           Invoking admiralty tort jurisdiction, Doe maintained that the location test was satisfied because the tortious conduct occurred at a “scheduled port of call,” where the cruise line retained certain “obligations to its passengers.”[5] In support of her jurisdictional argument, her counsel relied on the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion in Doe v. Celebrity Cruises which sustained admiralty tort jurisdiction in a shoreside claim involving a passenger who was raped by an employee of the cruise line, “very close to the docked ship.”[6] Judge Rosenberg was not persuaded.

           The admiralty tort jurisdictional test established by the Supreme Court in Sisson v. Rubin and Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. requires: (1) the tortious act occur on a navigable waterway and (2) a connection with a traditional maritime activity.[7] “A court applying the location test must determine whether the tort occurred on navigable waters or whether injury suffered on land was caused by a vessel on navigable water. The connection test raises two issues.”[8]  

           A court, first, must “assess the general features of the type of incident involved, to determine whether the incident has “a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce. Second, a court must determine whether “the general character” of the “activity giving rise to the incident” shows a “substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.”[9]

           In Classica, the Court explained why the plaintiff failed to meet the location test[10] without addressing the “connection” requirement.[11] According to Judge Rosenberg, the plaintiff’s claim did not fall under admiralty tort jurisdiction because “the necessary precursors giving rise to the tort did not begin aboard” Classica’s MARGARITAVILLE cruise ship.[12] Extrapolating on these “precursors,”  she highlighted the facts that (1) the assailants had no “connection to Classica or the Margaritaville cruise,” and (2) the cruise did not “exercise[] any control over the Resort or the alleged assailant[s]” because the assailant was not employed by the cruise line.[13] While acknowledging the plaintiff’s allegation that Classica “arranged for Plaintiff's accommodations at the Resort as part of Plaintiff's cruise package,” the Court found the plaintiff’s case too incongruous with Doe v. Celebrity Cruises to support admiralty jurisdiction.[14]

       A deeper dive into the Classica decision and the ostensibly incorrect legal reasoning applied requires a precursory understanding of Doe v. Celebrity Cruises—the controlling Eleventh Circuit authority. As previously mentioned, the plaintiff in Celebrity Cruises claimed that she was raped by the cruise ship’s crew member near the docked ship while at the port-of-call in Hamilton, Bermuda.[15] The assailant acquainted the plaintiff by waiting on her table over multiple meals onboard the vessel, recommended that she visit a disco club while at the port-of-call, and accosted her while walking back to the vessel from the club.[16] The appellate panel conducted the same two-part jurisdictional analysis that Judge Rosenberg in Classica applied, and concluded that the facts in the complaint satisfied the “connection with a maritime activity” component.[17] The panel’s treatment of the “location” test, however, is a questionable.

       The Eleventh Circuit primarily relied on language in Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v Kirby  for support in upholding admiralty jurisdiction.[18] Judge Hull, writing for the panel, ascribed four principal reasons why the facts in Celebrity Cruises satisfied the “location” requirement. First, the Circuit Court explained that stops at ports-of-call are part and parcel “of the on-going cruise or maritime activity in this case.”[19] Second, “[t]he sexual battery occurred very close to the docked ship, and neither the victim passenger nor the crew member left the port-of-call or traveled any real distance from the ship.”[20] Third (and most heavily relied on by Judge Rosenberg’s district court decision in Classica), “this particular incident effectively began and ended aboard the cruise ship. The necessary precursors for this sexual battery occurred while the ship was on navigable waters.” Last and more importantly exercise of the Court’s admiralty jurisdiction in Celebrity Cruises promoted:

the uniform application of general maritime law[21]; the standard of care that governs when a cruise line's crew member assaults a passenger should be uniform and not vary from port to port on a single cruise. Jane Doe was no less a cruise passenger the moment she stepped off the ship at the port-of-call than she was the moment before she stepped off the ship. We see no reason that cruise lines' liability to their passengers while at a regularly-scheduled port-of-call and in a crew member's company should vary from port to port, especially given the potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce.[22]

           The panel’s holding and reasons for judgment in Celebrity Cruises are wrong. Recall that the Celebrity Cruises Court largely relied on language such as, “the shore is now an artificial place to draw a line,”[23]  from Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v Kirby to support its conclusion. But, the Supreme Court in Kirby wrote these words in the context of admiralty jurisdiction over contract claims, not tort claims.  Each requires a separate and distinct inquiry: “The boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction over contracts—as opposed to torts or crimes—[are] conceptual rather than spatial. . . .”[24] Because the Eleventh Circuit applied jurisdictional principles concerning contract matters to a tort claim,[25] Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc. is ripe for review.

           Turning back to Judge Rosenberg’s district court opinion, the end result in Classica is correct: there is no admiralty jurisdiction when a shore-side injury is caused ashore.[26] However, Judge Rosenberg did not apply the strict location test mandated by Grubart and instead declined to exercise admiralty jurisdiction under the Eleventh Circuit’s four-factor test in Celebrity Cruises.

           By Ryan Simoneaux, J.D. Candidate 2025 Loyola College of Law. The views herein are the author’s alone.

           Please Find a Copy of the opinion attached.

[1] Jane Doe (E.W.) v. Classica Cruise Operator Ltd., No. 24-CV-80738, 2024 WL 4198169, at *1 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2024). The Court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim without prejudice and allowed her to amend her complaint to properly invoke diversity jurisdiction. Id. at *4.

[2] Id.

[3] Pl.’s complaint at p. 3. For more on the plaintiff’s allegations, see her trip advisor post that was referenced in the complaint:https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g147420-d209619-r424569034-Viva_Fortuna_Beach_by_Wyndham_An_All_Inclusive_Resort-Freeport_Grand_Bahama_Islan.html.

[4] Doe, 2024 WL 4198169, at *1.

[5] Id. at *2.

[6] Id. (citing Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891, 901 (11th Cir. 2004)).

[7] Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527, 534, (1995); Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 362–367 (1990).

[8] Grubart, 513 U.S. at 533.

[9] Id.

[10] Doe, 2024 WL 4198169, at *2–4.

[11] Id. the Court likely omitted this requirement because it already established that the plaintiff failed to satisfy the location test; furthermore, the Eleventh Circuit had already established that matters concerning the cruise line industry easily satisfied “maritime connection” requirement. See Doe, 394 F.3d at 900.

[12]  Jane Doe (E.W.) v. Classica Cruise Operator Ltd., No. 24-CV-80738, 2024 WL 4198169, at *3 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2024).

[13] Id.

[14] Id.

[15] Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891, 901 (11th Cir. 2004).

[16] Id. at 897–898.

[17] Id. at 900 finding the alleged injury potentially disruptive to maritime commerce and substantially relating to a traditional maritime activity, the Court reasoned:

“As the cruise line industry is maritime commerce, a crew member's sexual assault on a passenger obviously “has a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce.” It is easy to imagine that if rape or other forms of sexual battery became a concern of passengers, cruise-ship business would necessarily suffer. . . . As for the second issue of the connection test, the character of the activity here is the interaction between crew members and passengers during an ongoing cruise, which clearly bears a “substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.”

[18] Id. at 901 (citing Norfolk S. Ry. Co. v. Kirby, 543 U.S. 14, 15 (2004) (“the shore is now an artificial place to draw a line.”)).

[19] Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891, 901 (11th Cir. 2004) (“individuals choose cruise ship vacations because they want to visit unfamiliar places ashore.”).

[20] Id.

[21] Id. at 902.

[22] Id.

[23] Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891, 901 (11th Cir. 2004)(citing Norfolk S. Ry. Co. v. Kirby, 543 U.S. 14, 15 (2004)).

[24] Kirby, 543 U.S. at 23 (quoting Kossick v. United Fruit Co., 365 U.S. 731, 735 (1961).

[25] Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d at 900.

[26]  See Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527, 534, (1995); Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 362–367 (1990).