A woman whose husband died from a cardiac event while on a cruise in August has filed a lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, alleging that his body was improperly stored in a drink cooler causing it to decompose and dashing her hopes for an open casket wake and funeral. File Photo courtesy of Justin Link/
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April 23 (UPI) -- A woman whose husband died from a cardiac event while on a cruise in August has filed a lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, alleging that his body was improperly stored in a drink cooler causing it to decompose and dashing her hopes for an open casket wake and funeral.
Marilyn Jones, 78, was at sea with Robert Jones, her husband of 55 years, when he died onboard the Celebrity Equinox on August 15, she said in a complaint obtained by UPI. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also names the couple's two daughters and three grandchildren as plaintiffs.
Jones said in the lawsuit that she was told by Equinox staff that she could choose whether her husband's body would be removed from the ship when it docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or stored on the ship until it reached Fort Lauderdale in Florida six days later.
"Celebrity employees told Plaintiff Marilyn Jones that if she had her husband's body taken ashore in San Juan, she would be required to stay in San Juan with his body and would have to make arrangements for transport for herself and her husband's body back to the mainland United States," the lawsuit reads.
Jones' daughter Teresa West was also told that there was a chance the coroner's office in San Juan would take possession of her father's body instead of releasing him to a funeral home and there was no guarantee his body would be released back to the mainland United States.
Crew members told Jones and West that the ship had a working morgue to preserve her husband's body throughout the duration of the trip back to Florida. The lawsuit notes that cruise lines are required to have a working morgue on ships in case passengers die at sea.
An employee of a local funeral home in Fort Lauderdale boarded the cruise ship when it docked on Aug. 21 while escorted by a deputy sheriff with the Broward County Police Department.
"When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue," the lawsuit reads.
"Instead, Mr. Jones' body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship's morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship's morgue."
Jones said in the lawsuit that the cooler in which her husband's body was found had drinks placed outside of it and was not at a sufficient temperature to store a dead body to prevent decomposition.
"Furthermore, Mr. Jones' body was not located on a bed or medical table, his body was laying in a bag on a palette on the floor of the cooler," the lawsuit reads.
"On inspection of Mr. Jones' body, it was immediately clear that Mr. Jones' body was in advanced stages of decomposition and was never stored in a temperature appropriate to stop decomposition from occurring."
Jones alleged in her lawsuit that her husband's body had "expanded with gas" and that his skin had turned green and that there was a blood spatter inside the bag in which he was stored "which would only have occurred from extreme amounts of gas being released inside the body."
"The Celebrity crew in charge of storing Mr. Jones body during the six remaining days of the cruise acted recklessly, willfully, and wantonly, and without care for the Jones family's loved one by failing to ensure that the morgue was properly working for the duration of the near week that the remains were stored under their care," the lawsuit reads.
The family is seeking damages of $1 million and have requested a jury trial for the lawsuit.
