11th Circuit tosses $12M verdict in cruise passenger’s sexual assault suit against Carnival

The appellate court ordered a new trial in the case after finding a Florida federal court wrongly prevented the jury from hearing evidence that an FBI agent concluded the encounter between the drunk passenger and a crew member was consensual.ATLANTA (CN) — A unanimous 11th Circuit panel tossed on Tuesday a lower court’s decision awarding more than $12 million in damages and interest to a cruise ship passenger, ruling a new trial must be held on her sexual assault and false imprisonment claims against Carnival Cruise Line.The case will return to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where a new set of jurors will decide whether the heavily intoxicated Jane Doe was held in a storage closet against her will and sexually assaulted by a crew member during a game of hide and seek.The plaintiff was a passenger on board the Carnival ship Miracle in December 2018. The 21-year-old was “blackout drunk” and had recently hit her head on the ship’s pool deck when she says she was pulled into the closet and raped by Carnival janitor Fredy Anggara.The appeals court decided Tuesday a Florida federal judge wrongly ruled in the plaintiff’s favor on her false imprisonment claim before trial. The judge’s ruling came after a magistrate judge found there was no evidence on which a jury could rely to reject the plaintiff’s “undisputed recollection that at some point inside the closet Mr. Anggara did not let her exit the closet after she sought to do so.”The decision to tell jurors Carnival was already liable for false imprisonment took away the jury’s chance to determine the facts, the panel found.“Such an instruction could lead a jury to infer that the sexual conduct was similarly against her will,” U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote on behalf of the panel. The Donald Trump appointee wrote the lower court’s decision effectively poisoned the rulings that came after.The panel also found the lower court wrongly excluded an FBI report from evidence, which concluded the “encounter” between the plaintiff and Anggara was consensual. FBI agents boarded the ship following the incident and interviewed the plaintiff and Anggara just hours after the encounter.The plaintiff has argued FBI Special Agent Sarah Andreasen’s conclusions were untrustworthy and arose from an incomplete investigation. Andreasen did not view Carnival’s security footage or a handwritten statement Doe gave to Carnival.But Lagoa rejected the plaintiff’s arguments, finding there has been no showing that the FBI report was untrustworthy or inadmissible under a hearsay exception.“Doe suggests that the conclusions were untrustworthy because SA Andreasen’s investigation deviated from how Doe herself would have investigated the incident,” Lagoa wrote.Lagoa said the information “could have been the deciding factor for the jury” and “could disprove Doe’s allegation that the detention was without her consent.”Andreasen was instead “limited to recounting who she talked to, what they told her, and what she put into her notes but was unable to testify about her conclusions resulting from her investigation,” wrote Lagoa.Andreasen testified at trial that Doe was unable to recall if the entire encounter was consensual and that Anggara believed it was consensual. The government decided not to prosecute Anggara.An attorney for the plaintiff told the 11th Circuit during arguments in January that his client was so intoxicated she lacked the capacity to consent.The plaintiff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The plaintiff did not cross-appeal the jury’s verdicts in favor of Carnival on her negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. Those claims will not be relitigated at the new trial.The jury did not find Carnival was negligent but held the company liable for Anggara’s conduct. Anggara, who Carnival fired, was not a defendant in the case.A Carnival spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Lagoa was joined in the opinion by fellow Trump-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom and U.S. Circuit Judge Embry Kidd, a Joe Biden appointee.Categories / Appeals, LawSubscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads