Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Files Preliminary Injunction in Florida
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings has filed a preliminary injunction in Florida asking to invalidate the state’s law prohibiting businesses from requiring documentation of vaccination status.
The cruise line filed the motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida asking the court to grant NCLH a preliminary injunction enabling its ships to resume sailing safely with its stringent health and safety protocols.
In a statement, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings noted that the company has done its part to keep guests safe and that it has failed to reach an agreement with the state of Florida in order to restart cruises.
“With our extensive planning and preparation, we are ready to resume sailing from Florida ports on August 15, 2021,” read the statement. “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts we have been unable to reach a reasonable and mutually agreeable solution with the State of Florida that would allow us to require documentation confirming guests’ vaccination status prior to boarding. Despite the ongoing global pandemic and the accelerating spread of the Delta variant, Florida continues to prohibit us from requiring vaccine documentation which we believe would enable us to resume sailing in the safest way possible. We believe Florida’s prohibition is on the wrong side of federal law, public health, science and is not in the best interest of the welfare of our guests, crew, and the communities we visit, therefore, we have reluctantly turned to the courts for relief. Today, we ask the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to invalidate Florida’s prohibition and to grant us a preliminary injunction to allow our Company to resume sailing with stringent health and safety protocols to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, further spread of COVID-19.
“We strongly believe in the merits of our submissions, which speak for themselves, and we will not be commenting further outside of court. Our actions today reflect our commitment to resume sailing in accordance with our robust, science-backed SailSAFE health and safety protocols which have mandatory vaccinations at its cornerstone. Our policy of 100% vaccination of guests and crew is consistent and in place without issue in every port we sail from around the world except for Florida. Florida is the cruise capital of the world and has been our Company’s home since our founding in 1966 and we pride ourselves on continuing our good relations and contributions to our local community. It gives us no pleasure to be pursuing this lawsuit, which was our last resort. Nothing takes priority over the health and safety of our guest, crew and the communities we visit; our commitment to them is paramount.”
In addition to NCLH’s filing a preliminary injunction, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has appealed a federal judge’s June 18 ruling, which granted a preliminary injunction against the agency, preventing it from enforcing the terms of its Conditional Sailing Order (CSO) on cruise operations in Florida.