On April 14, 1912, 4 days into the Titanic’s voyage, the passenger ship struck an iceberg on the coast of Newfoundland at 11:40 pm and officially sunk at 2:20 am. The sinking of the ship took the life of Carla’s Jensen’s fiance, Hans Peder Jensen, and 1522 others and believe The White Star Line was responsible for the death of her fiance. In this case, since Han and Carla, both signed a will stating that Carla is the sole heir and executor of his estate which allows her to be the plaintiff of the suit while White Star Line is the defendant.
The legal issue of the Jensen vs The White Star Line is that Carla was suing them for the negligence of The White Star Line, its agents and the crew of the Titanic. Negligence is doing something that a person using an ordinary car would not do or not doing something that a person using ordinary care would do and has four elements that apply to this case. The first element that applies to this case is that there is a duty of care owed to a person and or group. The White Star crew owed all of their passengers a room to stay in with head while on their journey and also meals to eat but most importantly a safe trip to their destination in New York City but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The second element of negligence is if a breach of duty had occurred and it applied in this case because she believed the staff and crew failed to have standard care of those who were on the Titanic and as a result of that the Titanic ended up crashing into a large iceberg on a clear night in calm seas.
The third element of negligence is there was a reasonably close causal connection that caused injuries and this also applied to the case because the crew on board of the Titanic could have foreseen something horrible goes wrong with the ship at night going at a high rate of speed. With them going at a high rate of speed in iceberg-infested water at night could result in damage to the ship that could cause it to sink and kill many passengers and it ended up happening and caused the death of Mr. Jensen and 1522 others. The last element of negligence is that an injury causes actual damage or loss and this also applied to this case because it caused the loss of Mr. Jensen’s life, the loss of a lifetime of lost wages of an excellent carpenter, the excruciating pain and suffering of freezing to death and the mental anguish of knowing he would die and that he would never see his fiance again. In the end of Carla Jensen’s brief, she believes that the court should compensate Mr. Jensen’s estate for his death that the White Star Line caused, the pain of suffering through the frozen icy water leading to his death, the emotional and anguish of knowing that he was going to die and the financial losses for wages he would have earned as a skilled carpenter.
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On the other hand, The White Star Line story against the plaintiff is it was not The White Star Lines fault that Mr Jensen had died but his cause of death was his own negligence which contributed to his own death and under prevailing New York law, any negligence on Mr. Jensen’s part prevents Plaintiff from recovering from White Star, even though White Star may have been negligent. Also, according to the defendant, Mr. Jensen decided on his own to step-in to try and help control his fellow passengers to get into the boats even though Second Officer Lightoller said there was no assistance needed and did it anyways believed it was his own negligence that got him killed and not White Star Line’s. It’s also clear that Mr. Jensen assumed the risk of trying to help those not in the boat while putting his safety as risk.
Mr. Jensen also volunteered to help out the crew members even though he was warned that help wasn’t needed and if he would have stayed in the seat he already was occupied he would have still be alive since everyone on that lifeboat survived. If I was the juror, in this case, I would be in favor of the Defendant since the New York law states that Mr. Jensen’s own negligence ended up getting him killed even though if the White Star’s crew took the iceberg-infested water into more caution things would have ended differently. But ultimately I chose the White Stars side because if Mr. Jensen didn’t get out of Lifeboat D he would still be alive since everyone on that Lifeboat survived. Also, Mr. Jensen risked his own life trying to help out getting people off the ship and into the lifeboat when his help wasn’t even needed which led to him freezing to death in the freezing water and never being found.
