Opinion ID: 613118
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Duty-to-warn claim

Text: To recover for negligence, a plaintiff must establish: (1) duty; (2) breach; (3) causation; and (4) damages. Morris v. Princess Cruises, Inc., 236 F.3d 1061, 1070 (9th Cir.2001). [T]he owner of a ship in navigable waters owes to all who are on board ... the duty of exercising reasonable care under the circumstances of each case. Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 632, 79 S.Ct. 406, 3 L.Ed.2d 550 (1959); Peters v. Titan Navigation Co., 857 F.2d 1342, 1344 (9th Cir.1988) (concluding in a maritime-tort action for negligence that, because the plaintiff was not a seaman, the duty owed to him was the ordinary negligence duty of reasonable care under the circumstances). The degree of care considered reasonable in a particular circumstance depends upon the extent to which the circumstances surrounding maritime travel are different from those encountered in daily life and involve more danger to the passenger. Rainey v. Paquet Cruises, Inc., 709 F.2d 169, 172 (2d Cir.1983) (affirming the district court's dismissal of the complaint where the alleged dangerous condition  the stool over which the injured passenger tripped while dancing on the ship's dance floor  was in no way peculiar to maritime travel and where the cruise line had no actual or constructive notice that the stool in question was dangerous). Where the condition constituting the basis of the plaintiff's claim is not unique to the maritime context, a carrier must have actual or constructive notice of the risk-creating condition before it can be held liable. Keefe v. Bahama Cruise Line, Inc., 867 F.2d 1318, 1322 (11th Cir.1989) (establishing this requirement in a slip-and-fall case aboard a cruise ship); Isbell v. Carnival Corp., 462 F.Supp.2d 1232, 1237-38 (S.D.Fla.2006) (applying this standard for injuries that a passenger sustained while participating in an optional excursion in a rainforest). Construing the facts here in the light most favorable to Samuels, there is no genuine dispute of material fact that would require that this case be submitted to a jury. Samuels's wading on the Pacific Ocean side of Lover's Beach was not uniquely associated with maritime travel. And the record does not include any evidence (particularly because the material portions of the declarations made by Samuels's experts were properly stricken) that Holland American knew or should have known that the Pacific Ocean side of Lover's Beach was so dangerous that it needed to warn passengers not to swim there. With the exception of Samuels, 96,000 Holland American passengers visited Cabo San Lucas in 2008 without a single report that any of those passengers who chose to visit Lover's Beach were injured while doing so. Nor was Holland American aware of any similar accident, or any accident at all, that had previously occurred while a Holland American passenger was swimming on the Pacific Ocean side of Lover's Beach. See Isbell, 462 F.Supp.2d at 1237-38 (concluding that Carnival Cruise Line did not have constructive notice of the possible danger of a passenger being bitten by a snake during an off-the-ship excursion in a rain forest where Carnival had no report of this ever happening before to one of its passengers). Samuels has failed to provide any evidence to the contrary. Because Holland American had neither actual nor constructive notice of a dangerous condition on the Pacific Ocean side of Lover's Beach, it had no duty to warn Samuels about swimming there. For this reason, we have no need to address whether the possible dangers of swimming at that location were open and obvious, or whether that question is an appropriate one for decision on summary judgment. We conclude, in sum, that the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor Holland American.