The family of a man who passed away on a Celebrity Cruises ship is suing the company after his body was allegedly placed into a drinks cooler.
Robert Lewis Jones passed away on the Celebrity Equinox on August 15 2022 at the age of 78 while the ship was out at sea, not intending to dock for another six days, as reported by the Daily Mail.
His wife Marilyn Jones was informed that his body would be kept in the morgue on the ship until they docked, but at some point, it was moved to a walk-in cooler that was used to store beverages.
When the ship arrived at Ft. Lauderdale nearly a week later, his wife discovered that her husband was not where she was told he would be stored and has since filed a legal complaint against the company.
The lawsuit alleges that due to Robert's body being kept in a drinks cooler, he had badly decomposed in the six days between his passing and docking at land.
Along with the couple's children Robin Phillips and Teresa West, Marilyn alleges that the company insisted that the body remain onboard instead of removing it when they docked in Puerto Rico.
After arriving in Florida, a funeral services employee went to retrieve the body and found it badly decomposed in a body bag on top of some palettes, meaning an open-casket funeral was no longer possible.
The complaint stated: "The cooler in which Mr. Jones’ body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition.
"On inspection of Mr. Jones’ body, it was immediately clear that Mr. Jones’ body was in advanced stages of decomposition and was never stored in a temperature appropriate to stop decomposition from occurring."
The lawsuit, which was filed on April 19, claims that open-casket funerals are a long-standing family tradition and that they are suing Celebrity Cruises for $1 million for improperly storing the body.
Marilyn was offered the chance to remove her husband's body in San Juan or was informed that the body would be correctly stored when they reached the US mainland.
As cited by the Mail, the complaint reads: "Celebrity employees told Plaintiff Marilyn Jones that if she had her husband’s body taken ashore in San Juan, she would be required to stay in San Juan with his body and would have to make arrangements for transport for herself and her husband’s body back to the mainland United States."
Marilyn was 78 years old at the time of her husband's passing and had no family members onboard to help her remove the body at San Juan, so remaining on the ship until they reached Florida was her only option.
"The Celebrity crew in charge of storing Mr. Jones body during the six remaining days of the cruise acted recklessly, willfully, and wantonly, and without care for the Jones family’s loved one by failing to ensure that the morgue was properly working for the duration of the near week that the remains were stored under their care," the complaint reads.
Celebrity Cruises have not issued a response at the time of writing.
