Man's body stored in drink cooler after he dies on Celebrity Cruise: lawsuit

Celebrity Cruises is facing a lawsuit for allegedly mishandling the body of a deceased passenger by allowing it to decompose in a drink cooler aboard the ship last year.

Robert Jones, 78, died of a heart attack in August 2022 aboard the Celebrity Equinox as it sailed the Caribbean, and the cruise line contacted his widow, Marilyn Jones, with a choice, according to the suit

She could pick up the body at the ship’s next port stop in Puerto Rico or have it stored in the ship’s morgue until the cruise ship returned to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, six days later.

Jones chose to have her late husband’s body stored in the ship’s morgue, but when the ship arrived, a funeral home employee and sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service and the bagged body stored in a walk-in drink cooler on a pallet, the suit claimed. 

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The lawsuit states that the walk-in cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures required to store a body and prevent decomposition. Robert Jones’ remains were found to be in the "advanced stages of decomposition," having turned bloated and green.

As a result, the family suffered "extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity," the suit said.

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The family’s suit says that because of the body’s decomposition status, they were unable to hold an open-coffin funeral for Robert, which was "a long-standing family custom and what his family had desired."

Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages from Celebrity Cruises. They filed their lawsuit against the cruise line in a federal district court in Fort Lauderdale.

The Celebrity Equinox cruises the Caribbean year-round and is based out of Fort Lauderdale. The Malta-flagged vessel can carry nearly 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

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Celebrity Cruises, which is a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group, told FOX Business in a statement that, "Due to the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family, we decline to comment on the matter."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.