A US District Judge ordered the owners and operators of the Glory Sky I cargo ship to pay $3.3 million earlier this week for neglecting to cover the medical treatment of one of its crew.
Dantor Cargo Shipping and Foto Transport are the uninsured defendants in the case – the former was embroiled in another earlier lawsuit that could complicate how its assets could be divided among the plaintiffs.
Former crew member Saul Alberto Acosta Varela, 56, was working as chief engineer on the ship when the shipping company fell on hard times. The crew stopped receiving wages, and there were occasions when there was not enough food to go around.
“It was a nightmare scenario,” said Michael Winkleman, Lipcon Margulies partner and one of the Miami attorneys representing Acosta. “I’m not sure what was going on.”
It was around this period that Acosta developed a diabetic ulcer on his foot because of the low food supply on the ship, the judge found. He did not have diabetes when he underwent his pre-boarding physical. Due to the delay in medical care, Acosta’s ulcer became necrotic.
Acosta was denied medical attention for his foot – instead, he was given a plane ticket back to his native Honduras, the lawsuit stated.
One Honduran doctor recommended that Acosta amputate his foot, but another suggested a different operation that left him with a deformed foot. He is now disabled and cannot work, US District Judge Robert Scola of the Southern District of Florida found.
In a separate case last year, Dantor Cargo owner Rose Destin was ordered by a Miami-Dade judge to turn over her company to food importer David Middleton to fulfill a $789,000 judgment for stealing black beans from his warehouse and reselling them in Haiti. Middleton also held a previous $300,000 judgment against Destin’s husband, Emile. Middleton, however, was murdered the day before the October 18, 2016, deadline to turn over the company.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office told Daily Business Review that the murder investigation is still “active and ongoing.”
Middleton’s former attorney Scott Tuckman of Lavin Law Group in Miami said that the businessman’s estate has not moved to substitute into the lawsuit.
Both plaintiffs will have to race for the defendant’s limited assets – in this case, the Glory Sky I.
“The difficulty in this case is really finding a collectable asset,” Winkleman said, explaining that Middleton’s estate could go after the ship.
“We’re making efforts to try to seize the vessel that Mr. Acosta was injured on. But this operation was basically a single-vessel operation going back and forth from Miami to Haiti, so these can be fly-by-night companies that come and go. The lowest concern on their totem pole is their crew members.”
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