Following our initial retention to represent Hannah Smith last year, our legal team has uncovered critical new evidence.
Brais Law Firm Files Amended Complaint on Behalf of Hannah Smith Against Carnival Cruise Line, Pearl Investment Management Group, Ltd., and Sun Cay, Ltd.
Hannah Smith — before and after her May 2025 injuries.
MIAMI, Florida — Brais Law Firm has filed an Amended Complaint and Jury Demand in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on behalf of their client, Hannah Smith, a 22-year-old woman, against Carnival Corporation d/b/a Carnival Cruise Line (“Carnival”), Pearl Investment Management Group, Ltd. (“Pearl Island”), and Sun Cay, Ltd. (“Sun Cay”) (Case No. 1:25-cv-25952-WPD). The claims arise from a catastrophic and life-altering incident during a Carnival-marketed and Carnival-branded shore excursion in Nassau, Bahamas. All statements contained herein reflect allegations contained in the Amended Complaint.
A Celebratory Cruise Turned Catastrophe
As alleged in the Amended Complaint, what began as a celebratory cruise, taken just two weeks after Hannah Smith graduated summa cum laude from college, quickly devolved into a nightmare. Hannah Smith booked and participated in the “Pearl Island Beach Escape with Lunch”, a shore excursion operated by Carnival’s shoreside contractors, Pearl Island and Sun Cay, marketed by Carnival as part of its signature “Carnival Adventures” program.
Per the allegations of the Amended Complaint, Carnival’s own promotional materials (including its website) stated that Carnival “hand-selected the best local providers at every port of call,” that its excursion providers are “reliable [and] reputable” with the “best reputation” in their respective ports, and that Carnival “constantly upgrades the shore excursion packages offered in each port of call in order to make sure the best possible selections are made available.”
What Happened on Pearl Island: Spiked Drinks, Drugs, and Dangerous Ferry
As set forth in graphic detail in the Amended Complaint, upon arriving at Pearl Island, excursion bartenders immediately began pushing Hannah Smith and her companions to drink “copious and unsafe amounts of alcohol,” beginning with a 16 oz. complimentary “Rum Punch” and followed by three separate “liter pours,” a practice where a bartender told her to lean her head back, and poured an unknown concoction from an inverted plastic liter bottle directly into her mouth. Unaware of the strength of the mixture and that it had been spiked, Hannah swallowed the pour and became legally impaired. The Pearl Island employees charged with the duty to exercise reasonable care for Ms. Smith’s safety had instead purposefully acted to impair and render her unable to protect herself. All drinks were provided complimentary, at no charge.
The bartenders’ efforts did not stop with alcohol. As further alleged, they also furnished and encouraged the use of marijuana, providing Hannah Smith and her companions with two joints, again at no charge. Additionally, the Amended Complaint charges that excursion employees surreptitiously spiked the mixed liter-pour drinks with a drug-facilitated-sexual-assault (“DFSA”) and sedating substance known to impair alertness, cognitive functioning, and judgment. The alcohol overservice, the marijuana, and the spiking of the drinks all occurred within approximately one hour and eleven minutes.
The Amended Complaint alleges that following the third liter pour, Hannah Smith’s effective blood alcohol content was far beyond the 0.08 legal limit, with her faculties and judgment severely compromised. Excursion employees were fully aware of her visibly impaired and drugged condition yet did nothing to protect her, despite their duty of reasonable care for Hannah’s safety and that her altered state was directly of their making.
As further alleged, with Hannah Smith and her companions impaired and drugged and after the bartenders had deliberately moved the women to a private oceanfront cabana to isolate them from other guests, an excursion employee then pressed himself inappropriately against the buttocks of Hannah Smith’s companion, who immediately and forcefully objected.
During the transit back to Nassau aboard the Sun Cay Catamaran Ferry, the Amended Complaint alleges Hannah asked a crewmember for a restroom and was told to “use the water,” consistent with the earlier instruction on the Island that “the ocean is your toilet.” In a grossly impaired condition and acting on those instructions, Hannah Smith entered the water from the ferry’s aft dive platform. The captain, from a raised helm station with an unobstructed view of the aft dive platforms, engaged the ferry’s engine on the side where Hannah Smith was in the water, causing its propeller to turn in reverse. With no warning signs, no audible or visual cues, and no crewmember attending the aft dive platform, Hannah Smith was violently sucked into the ferry’s propeller.
The Injuries: A Previously Healthy Young Woman Now Faces a Lifetime Without Both Legs
As alleged in the Amended Complaint, the propeller caused an immediate traumatic amputation of Hannah Smith’s left leg below the knee and devastating lacerations to her right leg. Despite repeated attempts to save the right leg, she required three successive surgical amputations: first below the knee, then above the knee with removal of the femur, and ultimately a complete hip disarticulation, the amputation of the entire right leg.
Per the Amended Complaint, Hannah Smith lost over 60% of her total blood volume, arrived at Doctor’s Hospital in Nassau in hypovolemic shock, and was transferred by air ambulance to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital on May 14, 2025. Her care there included over 25 operative procedures, serial debridements, flap reconstructions, blood transfusions exceeding 20 units, IVC filter placement, and prolonged ICU care for multi-organ failure. She was not discharged until July 18, 2025, more than two months after the incident. Her care and treatment at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital is alleged to exceed ten million dollars.
Hannah Smith, a previously healthy young woman, now faces permanent bilateral lower-extremity loss, profound and ongoing pain and suffering, extensive future medical care, prosthetics, and lifelong psychological and physical consequences. Her father and stepmother have relocated to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to be at her side. Her mother, herself a primary caregiver for a son who is a quadriplegic following a tragic motorcycle accident, provides support from Tennessee with frequent visits to Hannah.
Carnival Knew or Should Have Known For Years of the Unsafe Excursion
As alleged in the Amended Complaint, complaints regarding numerous instances of extreme overservice of alcohol and distribution of marijuana on the Carnival-marketed Pearl Island excursion predated Hannah Smith’s injuries by at least six years. Prior online reviews submitted as exhibits to the Court record include: a Catamaran Ferry failing to properly tie off and requiring passengers to jump over a gap with engines running while disembarking passengers dating back to November 2023; a passenger suffering a leg injury from that same gap approximately one year before the incident; and a reviewer who warned future guests to “avoid if you value your safety” under a post headlined “Avoid this dangerous dump” dating to before January 2024. The Amended Complaint further alleges that for years, Carnival’s own cruise ship bridge officers could observe the Catamaran Ferry’s dangerous mooring and embarkation/disembarkation practices directly from their bridge wings at the Nassau pier within plain sight of the Carnival Celebration.
The Amended Complaint additionally alleges that Carnival deleted and suppressed negative passenger reviews of its Carnival Adventures excursions on its website, leaving passengers like Hannah Smith with a false impression of safety. The United States Department of State had also issued a Bahamas Travel Advisory dated March 31, 2025, less than two months before the incident, warning about boating safety hazards and sexual assaults.
The Legal Claims and Issues Before the Court
The Amended Complaint asserts multiple causes of action under general federal maritime law against the defendants, including: negligent selection and retention of the Excursion Entities; negligent supervision; negligent failure to warn; general negligence; apparent agency and agency by estoppel; and joint venture liability. Direct negligence claims, including overservice of alcohol, distribution of controlled substances, and unsafe vessel operations, are asserted against Pearl Island and Sun Cay.
Among the central issues for a jury will be whether Carnival bears legal responsibility for its own conduct in negligently selecting and retaining its “hand-selected” excursion entities and failing to warn passengers of a demonstrably unsafe and dangerous operation, one with a years-long documented practice of running ferry engines during passenger embarkation and disembarkation. The jury will also be required to decide whether Carnival turned a blind eye to years of complaints and instead prioritized revenue over passenger safety. Despite deriving revenue from booking this excursion thousands of times over many years, Carnival’s pleadings assert the excursion operators are “independent contractors” over whom it exercised no control.
As for Pearl Island, the Amended Complaint asserts negligence for overservice of alcohol, distribution of an illegal substance, and the surreptitious spiking of Hannah Smith’s drinks with a DFSA substance, as well as failure to intervene and protect her after she became visibly impaired. As for Sun Cay, the Amended Complaint asserts negligence for unsafe and dangerous disembarkation practices, including directing Hannah Smith to enter the water at the aft of the ferry when the captain periodically used the vessel’s engines to position the ferry. Both Pearl Island and Sun Cay have filed motions to dismiss asserting the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida lacks personal jurisdiction over them.
The case is pending before the Honorable William P. Dimitrouleas, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Case No. 1:25-cv-25952-WPD.
From Tragedy to Triumphant Purpose: Hannah Speaks Out for Others
What makes Hannah Smith’s story truly extraordinary is not only what was taken from her — but what she has chosen to do despite her tragedy.
In 2026, Hannah was invited to speak as a keynote survivor at the HCA Florida Trauma Survivors Luncheon, an annual event honoring patients who have demonstrated exceptional courage and resilience in the face of catastrophic injury. Standing before an audience of medical professionals, fellow survivors, and community supporters, Hannah, a young woman who had undergone more than 25 surgeries, lost both legs, and rebuilt her life from a hospital bed, chose not to speak about what she had lost. She spoke about what she had found.
Powered by a faith she describes as unshakeable and a sense of purpose she feels called to fulfill, Hannah addressed her audience with a composure and grace that left the room transformed. Rather than dwelling on her own trauma, Hannah spoke of her responsibility to use her experience to help others: to be a voice for patients who cannot yet find their own, to demonstrate that survival is not the end of a story but the beginning of one, and to remind anyone in the grip of unimaginable loss that the next chapter is still theirs to write.
Her faith in God, she says, is the foundation on which everything else rests. It is what carried her through surgeries and through the silence of recovery rooms. It is what brought her, eventually, to a podium, not as a victim, but as a witness to what the human spirit is capable of when it refuses to surrender.
To hear Hannah speak in her own words, watch her address at the 2026 HCA Florida Trauma survivors Luncheon, below:
[See, Link to Hannah’s HCA Kendal Hospital Keynote Adress at Trauma Survivor’s Event]
[See, Link to Hannah Exercising with her Dad]
Statement of Counsel
“Hannah graduated summa cum laude and was two weeks into celebrating that achievement when Carnival’s own hand-selected operators subjected her to a predatory, dangerous, and unconscionable course of conduct, spiking her drinks with a substance used to impair intended victims, pouring alcohol down her throat, and then directing a grossly impaired young woman to relieve herself in the water while the ferry’s captain periodically used its engines to hold the ferry in position because it had never been properly tied off,” said Keith S. Brais, Board Certified Admiralty and Maritime Attorney (The Florida Bar, 1996) and Hannah Smith’s lead counsel at Brais Law Firm. “The evidence we have assembled raises serious and troubling questions about what Carnival knew, what it ignored for years, and what it actively concealed from its own passengers through the manipulation of its promotional reviews.”
⚠ IMPORTANT — CALLING ALL WITNESSES ⚠
Brais Law Firm urgently seeks anyone with firsthand knowledge of any of the following — particularly involving incidents occurring before May 12, 2025:
- Excessive service or distribution of alcohol to passengers on the Pearl Island excursion;
- Distribution, sale, or use of marijuana or any other controlled substance by excursion staff;
- Any instance of a DFSA (drug-facilitated sexual assault) substance being added to any passenger’s drinks on the Pearl Island excursion;
- Unsafe, improper, or dangerous embarkation or disembarkation procedures aboard any Catamaran Ferry used in connection with the Pearl Island excursion — including ferries that did not properly tie off, or that ran their engines during passenger embarkation or disembarkation;
- Inappropriate, threatening, or sexual conduct by any Pearl Island or Sun Cay excursion employee toward any guest;
- Any prior injury, near-miss, accident, or incident involving the Catamaran Ferry used by the Pearl Island excursion;
- Any prior complaints made to Carnival, Pearl Island, or Sun Cay about any of the above.
All contacts will be treated with strict confidentiality. Please contact:
📞 1-800-499-0551
✉ [email protected]
Support Hannah: GoFundMe Campaign
Hannah’s injuries have imposed severe and ongoing financial hardship on her and her family. Anyone wishing to support her recovery can donate at her GoFundMe campaign:
“Support Hannah’s Endless Adventures” — GoFundMe
Every contribution — large or small — directly supports Hannah’s medical care, rehabilitation, prosthetics, and ongoing recovery. This link is provided without waiver of attorney-client privilege. Brais Law Firm does not share in any financial contributions to Hannah Smith’s GoFundMe.
About Counsel
Keith S. Brais is a Board-Certified Specialist in Admiralty and Maritime Law as certified by The Florida Bar (1996) and the founding partner of Brais Law Firm (Brais & Associates, P.A.), 9300 S. Dadeland Blvd., Suite 101, Miami, Florida 33156. Brais Law Firm is a boutique nationally recognized Admiralty and Maritime Law firm that represents only individuals or their loved ones left behind after catastrophic personal injuries or wrongful death due to negligence or intentional acts, including cruise ship sexual assaults or rapes. Each client is represented personally by Keith S. Brais or one or more of three partners & cruise ship shore excursion accident lawyers with the firm; Loretta Guevara, Esq., Karina Miralda, Esq. and Carra Miller, Esq. (Of Counsel).
Media Contact: Brais Law Firm | 1-800-499-0551 | www.braislaw.com | [email protected]
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This release reflects allegations in the Amended Complaint filed in Case No. 1:25-cv-25952-WPD, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. This communication is issued by counsel for Plaintiff Hannah Smith.
