Cruise Line Exec Sues for Millions after Onboard Fall

Santa Clarita, CA (WorkersCompensation.com) – An executive with P&O Cruises has filed a multi-million claim against the cruise line saying an onboard injury left her unable to work.

Kerry Middleton was working as a human resources executive for the company when she was on board the MV Britannia for a management meeting. The ship was in port in Cadiz, Spain when the 2019 incident occurred.

Middleton, 52,  said in her lawsuit that she slipped on water in a bathroom. The fall left her with a fracture to her spinous process in her neck, she claims.

The lawsuit against P&O Cruises and its parent company Carnival Cruises, headquartered in Santa Clarita, Cal., alleges the injuries left her needing a wheelchair and prevented her from working. Middleton is asking for more than $13 million.

Middleton said in her suit that doctors told her the injury should resolve itself within six months. She was later diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND), a condition that, according to the Mayo Clinic, can cause limb weakness or paralysis, tremors, speech difficulties, seizures, and significant psychological symptoms.

However, the disorder’s symptoms can vary in intensity, the hospital said.

"The condition may be triggered by a neurological disorder or by a reaction to stress or psychological or physical trauma, but that's not always the case," the clinic said on mayoclinic.org.

Middleton’s attorney, Eliot Woolf, said the woman remains severely impacted by the FND and is primarily a wheelchair user when moving around.

"The pain experts are agreed that her complaints of pain are subsumed within the diagnoses of FND. The neurologists are pessimistic over long-term prognosis," Woolf was quoted by media outlets as saying.

Wolff said experts anticipate “some improvement once she has undergone treatment in a multi-disciplinary unit, but not sufficient for her to return to any form of employment.”

While Carnival accepted responsibility for the initial accident, it challenged the scale of Middleton’s claim. The suit has already been decided and liability for the fall has been placed on P&O Cruises, but the company is now fighting how much the Cruise line will be required to pay in damages.

P&O Cruises and Carnival PLC argued that Middleton is not as disabled as the lawsuit suggests. According to the Times and the Independent, Carnival said they secretly filmed Middleton through her kitchen window on New Year’s Eve in 2024. The cruise lines said the video shows Middleton walking with “completely normal mobility and looking pretty chirpy on top of it.”

“We see her moving freely,” James Todd, Carnival’s counsel, said in court, per The Times. “She is cheerful and happy with her family. Towards the end of the clip, we see her walking around the kitchen island, doing so freely, without any sign of disability.”

Todd also argued that the medical and factual evidence does not support the finding that Middleton is permanently incapable of working.

Todd also suggested, the Times reported, that Middleton’s long-term condition or FND may have been “triggered” by a relatively poor performance review not long before the accident, and not the accident itself.  

Todd said the video footage was in contrast with what Middleton said to her doctor four months later when she said she could stand but not walk.

Todd did not accuse Middleton of fraud but said one expert had noted that she tended to “catastrophize and play up her symptoms.”

'It may be she honestly believes as part of her FND condition that she is paraplegic, when at times she plainly isn't,” Todd said.

Woolf argued the video surveillance footage should not be allowed since the surveillance operatives omitted footage and selectively filmed his clients’ actions. Additionally, the videos involved the use of zoom lens’ to film Middleton in her kitchen window from beyond her property line and invaded her privacy and the privacy of her children. Woolf also said Middleton denied the performance rating had anything to do with her FND as she was not told of it until January 2020, well after the onset of her condition.

'In any event, the performance grading did not cause her distress. Her FND symptoms were already manifesting prior to her first hemiplegic episode and before she was told of her grading even on the defendant's case,” Woolf said. “The performance grading was not a trigger for the first hemiplegic episode in any event."

The trial has been delayed until the video evidence can be analyzed. 

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