Costa Concordia passengers file £315m lawsuit in America

PA

Thirty nine passengers from the doomed Costa Concordia ship have filed a $494m (£315m) lawsuit in America seeking damages.

The suit was filed against Carnival Cruises - which is based in Miami - and its subsidiary company Costa Cruise Line, which owns the Costa Concordia.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the lawyer representing the passengers, Marc Bern, said the defendants had "acted in a severely reckless and willful, wanton manner, with complete disregard for the safety, lives and well being of the plaintiffs."

The 39 plaintiffs include passengers from Italy, Germany, Canada, America, South Korea, and China.

Legal experts have warned that it will be difficult to win the case because the Cost Cruise Line tickets state that any action against the company should be taken in Italy.

But another passenger lawyer, Lewis Shelton, to smh.com: "Florida is proper because Carnival and Costa are essentially the same entity with offices here."

The news comes after another Costa Concordia passenger who was five months pregnant at the time of the sinking is filing a lawsuit against the cruise company after suffering a miscarriage.

The Italian passenger, named only as Cristina M, escaped the sinking cruise liner on a lifeboat with her husband, but a week later she was admitted to hospital after miscarrying her baby.

The Costa Concordia sank after running aground on 13 January 2012 near Giglio, an island off the coast of Tuscany.

It is thought 32 people died, but 15 bodies have not yet been recovered.

Since the tragedy, a number of ghoulish stories have emerged, including reports of people selling Costa Concordia items on ebay, and the site of the accident turning into a macabre tourist attraction.



Sign up to our weekly newsletterFollow us on TwitterBecome a fan on Facebook