Years of Drop-Off Warnings Are the Troubling Detail in Long Beach Cruise Case

A Long Beach fire captain testified that fire personnel repeatedly told Carnival employees not to allow passenger drop-offs near Fire Station 6, yet the practice continued for years. That testimony deserves more attention than the argument over whether an injured passenger fell inside or outside the cruise terminal.

I’d expect a restricted drop-off area to stay clear after repeated warnings. If employees are directing traffic but passengers are still being left where they should not be, the restriction is not doing its job.

Long Beach has agreed to pay $400,000 to 83-year-old Filippo Ruffino, whose lawsuit against the city and Carnival Corporation says he fell on damaged pavement outside the Carnival-owned Long Beach Cruise Terminal on June 15, 2024. The suit says the fall caused a brain bleed and left him without sight in his right eye.

The settlement followed mediation and received City Council approval. Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell said Long Beach settled to avoid the “additional expense and risk associated with a jury trial.”

A disputed drop-off outside the terminal

Ruffino, a Nevada resident, had planned to join his wife’s family at the terminal beside the Queen Mary for a weeklong Mexican Riviera cruise calling at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas. According to his lawsuit, his medical expenses after the fall exceeded $39,000.

His lawyer alleged that a taxi left him on Windsor Way near Fire Station 6, forcing him to make rapid decisions while crossing a potholed street in busy traffic. The lawsuit accused Long Beach of failing to repair the hazardous roadway.

The city argued that the taxi should not have dropped him there because the location was restricted. But the fire captain’s deposition raises a question that argument does not settle: why were drop-offs continuing?

According to court records, the captain testified that several Carnival employees handled traffic control in the area. Fire personnel had repeatedly instructed those employees not to permit passenger drop-offs there, he said.

Carnival Corporation spokesperson Jodi Venturoni said the lawsuit “lacked merit as the incident did not occur onboard our ship or even inside the cruise terminal.”

“We stand firmly behind our safety standards,” she added. Venturoni did not disclose whether Carnival made a settlement payment.

The location of the fall matters to the legal dispute. As an explanation of passenger safety, though, the terminal boundary is an unsatisfying answer. It does not address the testimony about Carnival’s own employees.

Long Beach’s costly street problems

Data obtained by the Long Beach Post showed payments for three lawsuits involving potholes and deteriorated streets reached at least $18.38 million in 2024. That compares with nearly $240,000 combined for 13 pothole-related cases from 2020 through 2023.

The 2024 total included a $17.5 million jury award to a 50-year-old Long Beach woman who developed a rare pain condition after breaking her ankle outside a supermarket in the Zaferia neighborhood.

A street-condition audit also placed Long Beach near the bottom in a comparison with a dozen other cities and counties, despite spending more per mile than most of those jurisdictions.

Those findings give the city plenty to answer for on pavement maintenance. But a prohibited drop-off location offers passengers little protection if the prohibition never reliably changes where taxis leave them.