Cruise ship victims can’t use U.S. courts: Experts

Victims of the Italian cruise ship disaster who might seek to sue in the United States, where damages lawsuits are a virtual industry, may be barred from doing so. The primary reason, legal experts said, is that contracts written into the tickets state that lawsuits must be brought in the courts of Genoa, Italy. The contracts allow exceptions in the case of voyages to U.S. ports. But the cruise that ended in tragedy on Friday had just left the port of Civitavecchia near Rome headed for Barcelona and Majorca.