Cynthia Davis, et al. v. Valsamis, Inc.

Whether under this Court’s holdings in Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585 (1991) (limitation clauses that are contained within form passage tickets are “subject to judicial scrutiny for fundamental fairness”), and The MAJESTIC, 166 U.S. 375 (1897) (passengers are not bound by a limitation of liability that was printed on the back of a passenger ticket where the ticket’s front did not explicitly refer to the limitation provision), a passenger ticket for a holiday cruise fairly communicated to cruise ship passengers that they needed to provide pre-suit written notice of their claim to the party being sued (Respondent) rather than to the cruise line itself (Carnival), when the ticket explicitly said that Carnival must receive it. The decision below drew upon three separate parts of the ticket and concluded that, if taken together, they communicated that a requirement that Respondent, not Carnival, receive the notice.