According to attorney Darren Friedman who is representing Carnival Cruise Lines, the decision follows well-established maritime precedent and there is a hundred years’ worth of history supporting the decision.

On a cruise with her family in 1997, a teenager, suffered a burst appendix after appendicitis was allegedly misdiagnosed as flu.  The lawyer for the young woman who filed suit against Carnival, said he intends to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. According to her lawsuit, the woman was left sterile by an infection after her appendix burst.

A Miami-Dade court dismissed the case but it was reinstated by an appeals court on the grounds that the doctor was an agent of the line. The Florida Supreme Court said the lower court’s decision had been based on a single decades-old case which conflicted with the vast majority of maritime rulings.

“Federal maritime law always goes with what the courts have held unless there is a bonafide disagreement,” Friedman said. “Admiralty laws are uniform on this subject except for this one case.”

The cruise line lawyer said he would be would be surprised if the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case because there is no conflict in the issue.

Cruise line passage contracts typically specify that physicians and nurses are independent contractors, but U.S. personal injury attorneys contend that it’s difficult to bring suit against such medical personnel, who are typically non-U.S. citizens.