The plaintiff, the estate of a deceased passenger (an English citizen and resident) who fell ill with Legionnaires' disease and later died aboard the Liberty of the Seas during a cruise that originated from Miami, sued the defendant, Royal Carribean Cruises Ltd (Royal Carribean). The defendant moved to dismiss the suit under the terms of the ticket/contract of passage, which incorporated the Athens Convention 1974, and provided that all personal injury claims would be litigated in the courts of England and Wales and be governed by English law, which in turn likewise incorporates the Athens Convention 1974 limitations on liability for damages.

The lower Court granted the defendant's motion and dismissed the case. The plaintiff appealed. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the English law/forum selection clause and/or incorporation of the Athens Convention 1974 limitation of liability provisions were invalid under 46 USC § 30509, which prohibits any regulation or contract provision limiting liability for personal injury/death in any contract of passage between US ports or calling at US ports.

Held: The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the decision of the lower Court. Based on the legislative history of § 30509, and the fact that the statute had been amended by Congress even after intervening US Supreme Court decisions validating forum selection clauses, the statute does not prohibit forum selection clauses even if the clause indirectly results in a limitation of liability. 'Congress's concern in enacting [§ 30509] was to forbid the unilateral imposition of a limitation of liability by a ship owner without any recourse to judicial process [whereas] a choice-of-forum clause merely directs the litigation to a particular forum, usually one with a significant connection with the incident or with the parties, for adjudication. It leaves it up to that jurisdiction to determine the applicable substantive law to be applied to the dispute either through the application of its own choice-of-law rules or through its enforcement of a separate choice-of-law clause in the underlying contract.' Thus, even though § 30509 would prohibit the direct incorporation of the limitation of liability provisions of the Athens Convention 1974, the indirect imposition of the limitation of liability provisions via the forum selection clause was not prohibited by § 30509.

Finally, the Court found that the forum selection clause satisfied the two-part 'reasonable communicativeness' standard for incorporation in the ticket/contract of carriage. As to the first 'physical characteristics' factor, the Court noted that the tickets/contracts of passage provided to the Myhra family before the cruise included a 'number of sections related to Royal Caribbean's liability under clear, plain-English headings: "What is your liability?", "What is your limit of liability?" and "If I have a complaint?" [the last of which] sections begins by walking the customer through the on-board complaint process before including the forum-selection language at issue here concerning unresolved disputes.' These terms and conditions, including the limitation/forum-selection clauses, were likewise included (both directly and by reference to the defendant’s website) in numerous pieces of correspondence sent to the Myhra family, with prominent 'notices' directing them to the terms and conditions. The Court held these attributes satisfied the first element. As to the second 'surrounding circumstances' factor, the Court held (based largely on the attributes already discussed) that the Myhra family had the opportunity to become 'meaningfully informed' of the time and liability limitations.