Opinion ID: 76792
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Legal Standard Governing Doe's Claims

Text: 113 The principal liability issue is which standard governs the defendants' liability to its passenger Doe for crew member assaults: (1) strict liability or (2) reasonable care under the circumstances. 114 For the reasons we have detailed at some length, we conclude that the defendants owe a non-delegable duty to protect their passengers from crew member assaults and thereby safely transport their cruise passengers, that the Supreme Court's decisions in Brockett and Jopes remain binding precedent, that Kermarec did not overrule Brockett or Jopes, and thus that the district court did not err in concluding that the defendants are strictly liable for crew member assaults on their passengers during the cruise. We add that Kermarec 's reasonable care standard does not apply to a crew member's sexual assault on a passenger. Tullis, 397 F.2d at 23. 115 We turn, then, to the defendants' alternative argument that even if the strict liability standard governs crew member assaults on passengers during a cruise, that standard cannot apply factually to this particular case because (1) the sexual battery occurred while Aydin was off duty and off the ship and (2) the special carrier-passenger relationship was severed when Doe and Aydin left the ship's premises. 116