Sandra Newsom's wedding disaster lawsuit may -– literally –- take the cake. The New York woman has sued a cruise ship operator for ruining her wedding reception by serving a coconut-containing cake to which she had an allergic reaction.

The complaint against Carnival Cruise Lines, which was filed in Miami, does not allege the catering staff of the Carnival Freedom knew Newsom was “severely allergic” to coconut before she had her on-board wedding reception on Feb. 28. Things got so bad that her husband spent his wedding night “caring for an ill bride.”

Newsom attorney Paul M. Hoffman of Boca Raton, Fla. -- a specialist in cruise ship litigation – says she can still recover at least $75,000 in damages for negligence because her injury flowed naturally from the failure of the Carnival Freedom to provide her with the “white cake with vanilla frosting” she had ordered.

“In substituting a cake without telling her, Carnival is liable for all the consequences of its breach of duty even if the particular consequences are unforeseeable at the time of the negligent act,” Hoffman tells On Point.

The Florida courts, however, have warned against attaching tort liability “for results which, although caused-in-fact by the defendant's negligent act or omission, seem to the judicial mind highly unusual, extraordinary, bizarre, or, stated differently, seem beyond the scope of any fair assessment of the danger created by the defendant's negligence.” Stahl v. Metropolitan Dade County, 438 So. 2d 14 (1983).

One allergy information website says coconut allergy is “a relatively rare cause of food allergy” -- compared to, for example, peanut allergy –- with “few cases of allergic reactions from eating coconut products” having been reported.

Newsom had her reception on the first night of an eight-day Caribbean cruise. She describes her injuries as “an aggravation of a pre-existing condition” and both she and her husband, who is the co-plaintiff, allegedly “suffered a loss of enjoyment of the cruise and the cost of the wedding reception and party, which was ruined.”

According to Hoffman, the catering staff gave Newsom a choice for her wedding cake of “vanilla or chocolate cake with vanilla, chocolate or butter cream frosting. Because she was not told that coconut cake was a possibility, she did not feel she had to disclose her allergy.”

The suit also suggests an attempted coconut coverup. After the Newsoms complained about the coconut cake, it says, the staff misrepresented to them that “there was no coconut cake on board when subsequently on the cruise, a coconut cake was served to dinner guests in the main dining rooms and on the dinner menu.”

Hoffman's theory of liability tracks Florida case law which states that to satisfy the “proximate cause” element of negligence, "there must be a natural, direct, and continuous sequence between the negligent act [or omission] and the [plaintiff's] injury that can reasonably be said that but for the [negligent] act [or omission] the injury would not have occurred.”

Assuming the alleged facts are true, Newsom would not have been injured “but for” being served the wrong cake. But the apparent rarity of a coconut allergy may allow Carnival to argue that her injury was not a “natural and probable consequence” of its alleged negligence.

A “natural and probable” consequence – as distinguished from only a “possible” consequence -- has been defined as one “which a person by prudent human foresight can be expected to anticipate as likely to result from an act, because they happen so frequently from the commission of such act that in the field of human experience they may be expected to happen again.”

In a somewhat similar case, a Virginia man with an allergy to tomatoes, onions and pickles recently sued a Burger King restaurant for serving him a sandwich that included those ingredients. Foreseeability is also an issue in that case because tomatoes, onions and pickles are not ingredients “to which a substantial number of the population are allergic.”

Unlike the Burger King plaintiff, Newsom does not include a claim for breach of contract in her suit.

By Matthew Heller
6/18/09