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After 18-month-old Chloe Wiegand of Indiana fell to her death from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship window, her parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging the cruise line “failed to protect passengers from deceptively dangerous windows” [Source: USA Today]. Royal Caribbean, however, is blaming Chloe’s grandfather, Salvatore “Sam” Anello, for the child’s untimely death. The cruise line alleges that Anello leaned his body out of a window on the 11th floor of the ship, reached down and picked up Chloe, and then held her out of the window for several seconds until he lost his grip and dropped her.
The company has accused Anello of being “reckless and irresponsible,” and believes his actions are “the sole reason why Chloe is no longer with her parents.” Despite the accusations and the fact that Anello has been charged with negligent homicide, the family believes the cruise line is responsible for the accident and the company’s version of the events is a “false narrative,” says CNN. To help prove Chloe’s grandfather was not to blame for the incident, the Wiegand’s wrongful death lawyer released reenactment photos that serve as their evidence that “the grandfather couldn’t physically lean out of the window from which the toddler fell.”
In response to the lawsuit, Royal Caribbean released two of the 13 videos that record the area where the incident occurred. The cruise line alleges that in one of the videos, “Anello can be seen walking up to a window and [appears] to lean his upper body out of [it] for several seconds.” The cruise line then says Anello can be seen “picking up Chloe and holding her out of the window for 30 to 40 seconds before losing his grip.” While the video footage that was released captures one angle of the accident, the family says there are still more cameras “that tell the story of what happened.
Royal Caribbean Files Motion to Have the Lawsuit Dismissed
After the cruise line provided the video footage, it then filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed. CNN says a federal judge did deny the motion, although the company stated that it intends on refiling it.
Wrongful death cases have the potential to get messy which is why you should hire a Merrillville, IN wrongful death lawyer if your loved one was killed in an accident.
If you are a resident of Indiana who lost a relative to an accident that was caused by someone else’s negligence, a Merrillville, IN wrongful death lawyer can help you seek justice for their untimely death. To find out how justice can be served, contact Marshall P. Whalley & Associates at 219-769-2900.
