The coronavirus lawsuits against Princess Cruises keep piling up — and even more are on the way.

So far, there are seven $1m-plus suits covering 17 individuals against the Carnival Corp subsidiary in a Los Angeles federal court. They accuse the cruise brand of negligence in allowing the 107,500-gt Grand Princess (built 1998) to sail on 21 February despite the rapid spread of the virus on its ships.

But Debi Chalik of Florida law firm Chalik & Chalik told TradeWinds that she represents "more than 30 passengers" who were on board the vessel.

"We are getting calls daily from people who have finally arrived home, some testing positive for Covid-19," she said.

"The passengers were grossly mistreated from the moment they embarked ... since they were never informed of their potential exposure to the virus."

Chalik is working with California attorney Michael Simmrin in the lawsuits.

They all allege that Princess Cruises should have known better than to let the Grand Princess sail from San Francisco for Hawaii and Mexico after two passengers from a previous voyage had tested positive for Covid-19, one of whom died. Sixty-two passengers on board the 21 February voyage had been on the previous sailing.

Debi Chalik is highly critical of Princess Cruises' handling of the Grand Princess outbreak. Photo: Law Firm Newswire

Furthermore, Princess Cruises had a ship — the 115,900-gt Diamond Princess (built 2004) — quarantined off Japan, on which more than 700 cases of the respiratory illness were discovered and seven people died.

Princess Cruises ultimately cut short the Grand Princess' 21 February voyage. It was held offshore of San Francisco for several days, until being allowed to dock at the Port of Oakland, where passengers disembarked over several days — which Chalik takes further issue with.

"Princess had their passengers line up like sardines on top of one another, waiting in line for hours to disembark, over a five-day period," she said.

"They were ensuring that passengers would be infected by Covid-19 during the disembarkation process, by failing to observe the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines of social distancing."

Princess Cruises has said it does not comment on pending litigation.

On 12 March, Carnival announced that Princess Cruises would suspend operations for 60 days. Carnival followed suit across all its brands the next day, with fellow cruise majors Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Cruises doing the same.

Three weeks ago, Carnival said it expected to post a full-year loss due to Covid-19, after starting the year touting more advanced bookings for 2020 than 2019, plus a stronger US dollar and IMO 2020 fuel-price gains.