ARCHIVED CONTENT
You are viewing ARCHIVED CONTENT released online between 1 April 2010 and 24 August 2018 or content that has been selectively archived and is no longer active. Content in this archive is NOT UPDATED, and links may not function.As an ardent cruiser, this headline caught my attention. More fun and games with deleted e-mails. Where would Sensei be without deleted e-mails and texts?
A federal judge in Seattle vacated a $21.5 million verdict awarded to a man injured by a closing cruise-ship door in 2011, saying the deleted e-mails that should have been produced in discovery.
The Associated Press reported that U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein vacated the verdict for James Hausman on Monday and ordered a new trial. She made that ruling after Hausman’s former personal assistant, Amy Mizeur, contacted the defendant, Holland America, and said Hausman had deleted e-mails sought by the cruise line and had failed to disclose a personal e-mail account.
The verdict had included $16.5 million in punitive damages. Hausman had claimed an automatic sliding door closed while he was walking through it, hitting him in the temple. He claimed the injury caused vertigo, mental lapses and seizures. Trial evidence included accounts of 16 previous sliding-door incidents on Holland America ships.