A California woman has won a lawsuit against cruise giant Carnival Corp., in which the Florida-based company was found negligent for serving her at least 14 shots of tequila in an 8 1/2-hour period and liable for subsequent injuries she suffered while inebriated onboard. A Miami federal jury ruled in the passenger’s favor on April 10 and awarded her $300,000 in damages, according to a court ...

The Carnival Radiance.

Carnival Corporation/Carnival Corporation/TNS

A California woman has won a lawsuit against cruise giant Carnival Corp., in which the Florida-based company was found negligent for serving her at least 14 shots of tequila in an 8 1/2-hour period and liable for subsequent injuries she suffered while inebriated onboard.

A Miami federal jury ruled in the passenger’s favor on April 10 and awarded her $300,000 in damages, according to a court document that entered the docket on April 13. That exceeds the $250,000 requested during trial, the woman’s attorney Spencer Aronfeld said in an interview with the Miami Herald.

A spokesperson for the cruise company said on Tuesday that “Carnival Corporation respectfully disagrees with the verdict and believes there are grounds for a new trial and appeal, which it will pursue” in an emailed statement sent to the Miami Herald.

The case is a rare example of a complaint against a cruise line reaching a courtroom. And even rarer that a cruise line is found liable for passenger behavior.

“It’s hard to get to trial, period,” said Aronfeld, founder of Aronfeld Trial Lawyers in Coral Gables. “I’ve had many overservice cases that have settled but none that went the full distance.”

A six-person jury agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that Carnival’s crew members had a duty to exercise reasonable care for the safety of its passengers, and that included “the responsibility ... to supervise and/or assist passengers aboard the vessel who Carnival knew, or should have known, were engaging, or were likely to engage in behavior potentially dangerous to themselves or others abroad the vessel,” according to court documents.

When asked what percentage of the plaintiff’s injury was caused by each side, the jury wrote: 60% was the fault of Carnival and 40% the woman.

Diana Sanders, a 45-year-old nurse who lives in Vacaville, California, was a passenger on the Carnival Radiance ship on Jan. 5, 2024, when she was served at least 14 shot of tequila in an 8 hour and 39 minute span, between approximately 2:58 p.m. and 11:37 p.m.

“Due to her inebriated state that was caused by this over-service of alcohol ... D.S. suffered a severe fall” between 11:45 p.m and 20 minutes past midnight, the complaint said. Due to the fall, she “sustained severe injuries, including, but not limited to, a concussion, headaches, a possible traumatic brain injury, back injuries, tailbone injuries, bruising, and other injuries.”

Her lawyers argued that once she became visibly intoxicated on the ship out of Los Angeles, that Carnival bartenders should have stopped serving her. Cruise ships’ bartenders don’t typically cut off guests from drinks the way bartenders do on land.

Consuming large amounts of booze is one of the big appeals of cruise ships — and alcohol is a moneymaker for cruise lines. Last year, the fiancée of a Southern California man sued Miami-based Royal Caribbean, saying the company was responsible for his onboard death after serving him 33 alcoholic drinks in under 12 hours.

“To maximize revenue, Carnival deliberately designs its vessels ... to ensure that there are alcohol serving stations in every nook and cranny of the ship,” the plaintiff’s complaint said in the tequila lawsuit. The carrier “deliberately does as much as possible to encourage and facilitate alcohol consumption aboard its vessels.”

During 17 months of legal proceedings, Carnival sought to dismiss the lawsuit.

Part of its defense was that Sanders “fails to identify any crew member who over-served her or which bar she consumed alcohol at for Carnival to have the ability to identify its bartenders” according to court filings. “Therefore, the over-service of alcohol count should be dismissed for failure to sufficiently identify a negligent employee.”

Carnival’s lawyers also argued Sanders “does not sufficiently allege that any crew member knew or should have known that Plaintiff was intoxicated. ... There are no allegations regarding Plaintiff stumbling, sleeping at a bar, slurring her words, or exhibiting any other intoxicated-like behaviors.”