DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - A Florida appeals court reversed a $4 million jury award – including $1 million in punitive damages -- to a Disney Cruise Line employee who was hit by a car in the Bahamas, finding punitive damages were unjustified and her economic expert presented an unreliable estimate of future medical expenses.
Ana Maria Reis Martins was a food server on the Disney Dream cruise ship when she was injured crossing the street in Nassau in 2013. She was treated aboard the ship and then went home to Portugal, where under U.S. maritime law she was entitled to “maintenance and cure,” or medical treatment until her condition stabilized at a point where it couldn’t be improved.
Martins’ doctor in Portugal said she reached this point, known as maximum medical improvement or MMI, in March 2014. She returned briefly to work, then complained of intense chest pain. The ship’s doctor suspected post-traumatic intercostal neuralgia, a condition that can persist after chest trauma.
Martins returned to Portugal, where Disney resumed maintenance and cure. The first doctor she saw diagnosed her with intercostal neuralgia, but she switched to a neurosurgeon who diagnosed her with broken ribs and a fractured sternum. The second doctor declared Martins MMI in July 2014 and said she wasn’t fit to work as a server. Disney stopped paying maintenance and cure in September 2014.
A year later, Martins hired a lawyer who told Disney to immediately resume payments. Disney told the lawyer to provide information so it could investigate the claim, or a demand package for a possible settlement. Instead, the lawyer sued in December 2015.
Over the next year, Martins submitted information about additional medical conditions she suffered including depression, insomnia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cervical radiculopathy and a vertebral collapse. Disney examined the records and determined none of them negated the initial finding of MMI. In 2017, Disney hired a neurologist to review Martins’ records who also concluded no further treatment would improve her condition.
Overruling Disney’s objections, the trial judge allowed the plaintiff to claim Disney was “willful and callous” by refusing to reinstate maintenance and cure. The jury awarded her $4 million, including $1 million in punitive damages.
Florida’s Fifth District of Appeal reversed in part, ruling in a Nov. 12 decision that Martins failed to provide enough evidence to support a punitive damages claim and her economic damages estimates shouldn’t have been presented to the jury.
On punitive damages, the appeals court said it wasn’t enough that Martins won her claim Disney had unreasonably denied maintenance and cure.
“Much more than unreasonable denial of reinstatement is required—there must be evidence that the shipowner acted with a level of callousness, recalcitrance, and bad faith, which Martins did not present,” the court said. “Thus, the question of punitive damages should not have gone to the jury.”
The court also reversed $2 million in economic damages, saying the question must be retried.
Gary Anderson, her economic damages expert, testified she would need $1.7 million for future medical expenses and had lost future wages of $1.4 million.
The appeals court said Anderson had no expertise in estimating medical costs and had simply plugged in the costs of various procedures and medications he received from another expert without estimating whether Martins needed them or how often she would utilize them.
The court rejected Martins’ claim for attorneys’ fees, saying they weren’t allowed under the Jones Act, the federal maritime law covering personal injury damages, and Martins had failed to object to jury instructions that were unclear about how to apportion the money she won from the maintenance and cure claims.