Joe Biden rode into the White House on campaign promises of building up climate resiliency, pledges to mitigate decades of transportation inequity, and assurances that his administration would take bold action to build back better with sustainable long-term investments in infrastructure. The nation’s crumbling infrastructure has been a prominent concern and front-burner policy issue for years, but the devastation and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a number serious deficiencies crippling our freight and logistics network. With unprecedented demand for imported goods and capacity issues abound, the pandemic effectively uncovered major issues for the maritime and freight logistics industries with…
Who knew a dance floor on a cruise ship could be a dangerous place? Over the years, dance floors on cruise ships have been the sites of many personal injuries. In turn, those injuries gave rise to lawsuits against the cruise lines. Surprisingly, the cruise lines were not always held liable for what happened on the dance floor. Open and Obvious Condition in the Disco Under established federal maritime law, a vessel owner owes only a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances to passengers, not the higher duty of seaworthiness owed by a vessel owner to crewmembers. In Salazar…