NorCal Nurse Served 15 Shots On Cruise Ship Awarded $300K By Jury

A Northern California nurse who fell down a flight of stairs after she drank 15 shots of tequila on a Carnival cruise has been awarded $300,000 in damages by a jury.

Diana Sanders, of Vacaville, sued the cruise line in 2024, claiming that bartenders on the ship were negligent for continuing to serve her shots even though she was visibly intoxicated, the New York Times reported.

"She was served 15 shots of tequila in about eight hours. She woke up not knowing exactly how she got there, at the bottom of the staircase in the crew area," Sanders' attorney, Spencer M. Aronfeld, said in a TikTok video after the verdict.

@cruiseshiplawyer We discuss a significant legal victory in a case against Carnival Cruise Line. My client, Diana Sanders, a nurse from Northern California, was excessively served 15 shots of tequila over eight hours while aboard the Carnival Radiance. She blacked out and woke up at the bottom of a staircase in the crew area. After a frustrating experience with the cruise line's lack of transparency and conflicting information, Diana pursued legal action. Despite facing a corporate giant and two years of litigation, a Miami jury of eight women ruled in her favor after five days of deliberation. We discuss how cruise lines have a responsibility to serve alcohol responsibly and not to repeatedly serve visibly intoxicated passengers, and how this verdict represents justice prevailing. #CruiseLine #Carnival #cruiseship #Alcohol #victory @carnival ♬ original sound - Spencer Aronfeld

Sanders in January 2025 departed from Los Angeles on a three-day cruise with two friends, all of whom had paid for the "Cheers!" drink package, which includes 15 alcoholic drinks in a 24-hour period, the Times reported.

Between about 3 and 11:30 p.m., Sanders drank 15 tequila shots across four different bars. Around midnight, she left the casino bar where she had consumed her last five shots. She then fell down a flight of stairs and ended up in a crew area, the Times reported.

A Carnival security guard escorted Sanders back to her cabin, where she shouted that her friends had left her at the bar, the Times reported.

"Waking up after blacking out and going to the crew and asking them for help and asking them to tell me what happened was extremely frustrating.

They gave me conflicting information. They treated me like a criminal," she said in the TikTok video.

Sanders' attorney said his client suffered head injuries, bruising and emotional distress.

Sanders asked for $250,000 in damages, but was awarded $300,000 on Friday after a weeklong trial in Miami.

The plaintiff testified at trial that she was also responsible for her actions, but her lawyer argued that the cruise line also has a duty to responsibly serve customers, the Times reported.

The jury found that Carnival was 60% responsible for Sanders' injuries and that she was 40% responsible, the Times reported.

Sanders said in the TikTok video that she was happy with the verdict.

“I felt like the whole time they (the jury) saw right through what the defense was trying to do, how they tried to defame my character — things they brought up that had nothing do with the case. They were just trying to criminalize, bully me and make me look like a bad human being," she said.

A Carnival representative told the Times the company disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal.