Ship sailed too fast, made me sick

An Indiana Court of Appeals this week took up the case of a woman who claims she got sick on a Carnival cruise ship because it was going too fast.

According to court documents, Doris Beard of Indiana filed a complaint against Carnival saying that "due to the speed of the ship I became very sick ... the ship was moving so fast everyone on board became sick, even the workers."

The court documents did not say on which ship Beard had sailed.

On Monday, the Indiana appeals court reversed a lower court's decision that the case could move forward in Indiana, citing wording in Carnival's cruise contract that says such cases must be filed in Florida.

Beard filed the case in 2009 in a small claims court in Lake County, Indiana, and the small claims court initially had denied Carnival's motion to dismiss the case. In addition to arguing the case should be dismissed on the grounds it had been filed in the wrong venue, Carnival also had argued Beard had failed to file the claim within the one-year statute of limitations provided for in the cruise contract.

Beard noted in her complaint that her body "swayed terrible" on the Carnival ship, according to court documents. "I had bleeding, which I had not has [sic] in three years," the complaint said.

Most ships in the Carnival fleet are capable of sailing at speeds no greater than 22 to 24 knots -- about 25 to 28 miles per hour.

(Published by USA Today - March 22, 2011)