Sutton v. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
| Decision Date | 16 May 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 18-10693,18-10693 |
| Parties | JENNIFER SUTTON, Plaintiff - Appellant v. ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES LTD., a Liberian corporation a.k.a. Royal Caribbean Cruises LTD, d.b.a. Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, d.b.a. Royal Caribbean International, Defendant - Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-24707-JLK
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida Before WILSON, JILL PRYOR and THAPAR,* Circuit Judges.
In this appeal, Jennifer Sutton asks us to reconsider the district court's decision granting summary judgment to Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. In her lawsuit against Royal Caribbean, Sutton alleged that the cruise operator had been negligent in maintaining a Martin MX-10 Extreme Lighting ("MX-10") machine above the dance floor on the Independence of the Seas cruise ship and, as a result of that negligence, part of the machine had fallen and struck her on the head. The district court granted summary judgment to Royal Caribbean, ruling that Royal Caribbean had neither actual nor constructive notice of the allegedly dangerous condition posed by the lighting machine. The district court also held that Sutton was not entitled to rely on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to establish her claim because she had insufficient evidence to support an inference of negligence. After careful review, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm the district court in full.
On the last day of her Royal Caribbean getaway cruise, Sutton was on the lower floor of the ship's Labyrinth Night Club when she felt an object hit her head. The object was a mirror from an MX-10 machine suspended above the dance floor.1 Sutton experienced her first-ever migraine headache soon after she was struck by the mirror, and she has continued to experience frequent, intense migraine headaches since.
The MX-10 machines are lighting instruments that flash colored light, at varying angles, across Royal Caribbean's night club. Each MX-10 machine has a rotating oval mirror used to reflect light for a disco ball-like effect. A metal bracket is affixed to the back of the oval mirror; that bracket is attached by two three-millimeter bolts to a rotating shaft below the motor.2
According to its user manual, the MX-10 "requires regular maintenance to keep performing at [its] peak." Doc. 29-2 at 21.3 The manual prescribed no set maintenance schedule, instead noting that the machine's "maintenance schedule will depend on the application and should be discussed with your Martin distributor." Id. The only warning in the manual was that "[e]xcessive dust, grease, and smoke fluid buildup degrades performance and causes overheating and damage that is not covered by the warranty." Id. As for the mirror, bolts, bracket, and shaft, the manual noted only that "[n]o adjustment is required" once the mirror is installed "as long as you do not loosen the tilt motor shaft adaptor."4 Id.
As part of its regular maintenance, Royal Caribbean employed sound and light technicians to regularly clean and inspect the MX-10 machines. Those specialized technicians habitually dusted the MX-10 machines with an air compressor and addressed anything they observed on the machines that "need[ed] maintenance." Doc. 35-2 at 29. Royal Caribbean required its sound and light technicians to report in maintenance logs "anything wrong" or anything that "need[ed] maintenance" on the MX-10 machines. Id. The maintenance logs reflect that the MX-10 machines were inspected and cleaned less than two monthsbefore Sutton's incident. No issues with the MX-10 machines were documented at that time. In fact, no issues with the mirrors, bolts, brackets, or shafts on the MX-10 machines were ever documented in the maintenance logs, reported or described by passengers, or noted in safety inspection reports or elsewhere. In addition, no prior instances of falling sound or lighting equipment were reported on any Royal Caribbean Freedom class vessel night club, lounge, or theater during the parties' agreed-upon discovery period, which was three years preceding Sutton's incident.5
During discovery, Sutton produced an expert report from James Lile, an expert in overhead and stage lighting. Lile offered his "professional recommendation" that the MX-10 machines should be inspected quarterly and that those inspections should follow a detailed checklist. Doc. 29-1 at 2. Lile relied on, among other things, the American National Standards Institute's industry guidelines for mounting and inspecting overhead equipment. The guidelines recommended that owners determine how regularly and thoroughly to inspect their equipment based on the equipment's usage and environment but did not address the frequency or comprehensiveness of inspections. Lile opined that the MX-10 machine's mirror had fallen because the bolts connecting the bracket to the shaft"more likely than not loosened over time." Doc. 29-1 at 3, 5. He surmised that Royal Caribbean had not performed quarterly inspections and that it was "[m]ore like[ly] than not [that Royal Caribbean] should have known that the mirror was coming loose and more likely than not [that] the failure to properly inspect and maintain caused the mirror to detach and fall on" Sutton's head. Id. at 5.
Royal Caribbean filed a motion for summary judgment, and Sutton offered her expert's report in response. The district court granted the motion. The district court ruled that there was "no evidence . . . establishing that [Royal Caribbean] was on notice of the alleged dangerous condition posed by the mirror or the MX-10 lighting machine." Doc. 47 at 4. Without evidence of similar incidents, the court reasoned, Royal Caribbean had no duty to its passengers and was entitled to summary judgment. The district court also determined that Sutton could not rely on the evidentiary doctrine of res ipsa loquitur because the record supported competing reasonable inferences about what caused the mirror on the MX-10 machine to fall.
This is Sutton's appeal.
"We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing all the evidence, and drawing all reasonable factual inferences, in favor of the nonmoving party." Stephens v. Mid-Continent Cas. Co., 749 F.3d 1318, 1321(11th Cir. 2014). Summary judgment is proper "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
Sutton argues on appeal that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Royal Caribbean. We disagree. The district court properly concluded that Royal Caribbean was entitled to summary judgment on two grounds: (1) Royal Caribbean owed Sutton no duty of care because it had no actual or constructive notice of a dangerous condition caused by the MX-10 machines, and (2) Sutton could not rely on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to support her claim.
"Maritime law governs actions arising from alleged torts committed aboard a ship sailing in navigable waters." Guevara v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd., 920 F.3d 710, 720 (11th Cir. 2019). We apply general principles of negligence to maritime tort cases. See Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1336 (11th Cir. 2012). To prevail on her negligence claim, a plaintiff must show "(1) the defendant had a duty to protect the plaintiff from a particular injury; (2) the defendant breached that duty; (3) the breach actually and proximately caused the plaintiff's injury; and (4) the plaintiff suffered actual harm." Id. This case centers on the first and second elements.
We first address whether Royal Caribbean owed Sutton a duty. A cruise ship operator owes to its passengers the duty of exercising "ordinary reasonable care under the circumstances." Keefe v. Bahama Cruise Line, Inc., 867 F.2d 1318, 1322 (11th Cir. 1989). We will not hold a ship operator liable unless it "had actual or constructive notice of [a] risk-creating condition." Id. Liability thus depends upon whether the ship operator either knew, or else should have known, about the allegedly dangerous condition that the plaintiff claims caused her injury. Id.
We have identified two ways in which, in the absence of evidence of actual notice, a passenger plaintiff can establish that a ship operator had constructive notice of a risk-creating condition. First, she can put forward evidence that "the defective condition existed for a sufficient period of time to invite corrective measures." Guevara, 920 F.3d at 720 (alteration adopted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, she can submit "evidence of substantially similar incidents in which conditions substantially similar to the occurrence in question must have caused the prior incident." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
We address the second way first. In this case, there was no evidence that Royal Caribbean actually knew of the existence of a dangerous condition. Sutton therefore had to come forward with evidence that Royal Caribbean had constructive notice that the MX-10 machine posed a danger to cruise passengers.But Sutton identified no prior incidents involving overhead lighting equipment. Despite Royal Caribbean's policy requiring documentation of any problems with the MX-10 machines, Sutton identified no prior instances in which Royal Caribbean's technicians who regularly inspected and maintained the MX-10 machines reported any issues, safety or otherwise, with the mirrors, bolts, brackets, or shafts of the lighting machines. See Monteleone v. Bahama Cruise Line, Inc., 838 F.2d 63, 66 (2d Cir. 1988) (). Nor did Sutton identify any prior accident reports, passenger reviews or complaints, inspection reports, or other documents evidencing any actual or...
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