Cruise Line Let Passenger’s Body Decompose, Lawsuit Says

The cruiser Celebrity Equinox built by the shipyard Meyer in Papenburg, Germany, goes down the river Ems near Gandersum, Germany, on June 20, 2009. Joerg Sarbach/AP Photo

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on a ship last year, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.