Cruise line let passenger's body decompose, lawsuit says
A widow is suing a cruise line, alleging that it let her husband's body decompose after he died of a heart attack
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband's body after he died while they were on a ship last year, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.
After Marilyn Jones' husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.
That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired," the lawsuit says. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages.
Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case's sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.
