[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

It appears that you now have professional complainers on cruise ships

Mike
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Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 4 March 2009 07:57:39 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

Training is key to seeing the back of serial complainants
David Handley - Wednesday 4 March 2009

THE phenomenon of the professional complainant, for whom the key aim  
of a cruise holiday is reparation following personal injury or  
compensation for other claims in on the increase. Cruise operators are  
aware of this and are responding to it, and we here consider some of  
the more effective steps that they can take*.

A major operator has recently announced its plans to blacklist such  
people, in other words to refuse to allow them bookings. It is  
certainly desirable that spurious complaints and premeditated claims  
are curtailed as far as possible, but there is a more effective  
response that tackles the problem at source.

The suggested method is not a combative policy of routine denial and  
tenacious contest — one knows that despite best efforts incidents  
occur, and valid claims are addressed promptly and sympathetically.  
Nor does it involve hermetically sealing passengers from any  
conceivable danger — as implausible as it would be intrusive, for many  
this would remove much of the allure of a cruise.

While safety remains paramount, in addressing the compensation culture  
it is necessary not to remove all risk of what might happen but to  
secure the best and most complete evidence of what did. In this the  
recommended routine is care in the initial response to any complaint,  
thorough attention to detail when collecting and preserving the  
evidence, and full and specific training of all crew in these new  
skills.

Firstly, cruise operators should make all personnel aware of the  
current problem. Regrettably, a great many crew members and even some  
senior officers do not appreciate the financial burden carried by  
having to respond to the still increasing number of claims. There is a  
twin adverse result: money tied up in this way would be better spent  
on further embellishing the cruising environment, for the benefit of  
passengers and crew alike, and conversely the cost of handling claims  
is spread out but ultimately passed on through fare increases.

Next, even small investment in training crew in how to respond will  
soon repay its cost. For instance, while courtesy and professionalism  
are rightly standard on cruiseships, crew should be made aware of the  
dangers lurking in seeming routine apologies and that such are likely  
to be relayed to and used by opposing lawyers. While it will often be  
understandably very difficult to stand mute at the scene of a serious  
injury, at the very initial stages of most matters it is best to be  
sympathetic but non-committal, and in some to say nothing and call in  
senior colleagues at once. Training and also experience will help  
here, and the incident can at once be investigated by either the  
ship’s safety officer or someone else specifically trained.

Experience, training and where appropriate external help are vital  
here, as a thorough and complete investigation is most important. The  
prompt gathering of complete and accurate contemporaneous evidence  
will often enable an operator’s legal advisers either to deal with a  
claim completely at an early stage or defend it effectively if it is  
advanced.

The first and most important thing is a witness statement from each of  
the crew members, or any other employees of the operator who witnessed  
the incident. These should always be as detailed as possible, and  
should cover relevant events leading up to the incident, and matters  
such as whether the passengers were playing the fool, whether they  
were they warned (either verbally or by signage) of possible dangers,  
and the account of any other passengers who saw what happened. While  
there are exceptions, usually the sooner after the event a statement  
is taken the more accurate it is likely to be, and the more readily a  
judge will prefer it to a competing account taken long afterwards. As  
part of taking witness statements, full handwritten notes should  
always be made and retained.

A ship’s various logs and other records are also very important in  
responding to a claim, and all this material should immediately be  
collected and preserved, such as for instance cleaning logs, food  
logs, movements on and off the vessel and passenger onboard account  
details. It is far better to secure these at the time, both for  
analysis and to avoid the risk of their being lost or even  
accidentally destroyed. Much of this material might have to be  
produced to opposing lawyers: early disclosure could end a claim at a  
preliminary stage, and efficient retention lessens retrieval cost.

The most important step of all will probably be the interview with the  
complainant, and (perhaps based on earlier findings) the investigating  
officer should if possible plan that in advance, as focus and brevity  
will assist clarity. This will allow a thorough report to be prepared  
— always factual and without personal opinion — and may also enable  
the officer to gauge the strength of the complaint and so advise on  
any further steps.

To put such measures into full effect may require increased training  
and will always involve a designated senior officer on board. However,  
the inevitable further demands on manpower and fundingwill diminish as  
the return on the investment — evidence which is more complete,  
compelling and harder to challenge — results in quicker and less  
costly disposal of claims and fewer successful (andthus progressively  
less) claims by those predisposed to speculative complaint for  
personal gain.

Many cruise operators now benefit from training, guidelines and  
systems prepared or reviewed by their external advisers, and regularly  
updated.

*See ‘Compensation culture — cruising for a bruising’, Lloyd’s List,  
October 8,2008

David Handley served as a chief officer with a major cruise operator,  
and is now a member of Hill Dickinson’s cruise and ferry team in London.

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