Wallis

Plaintiff Bobbie Jo Wallis brought an action against defendants Princess Cruises, Inc., and others for damages based on the death of her husband, who drowned off the coast of Greece after falling in an undetermined manner from defendants’ cruise ship. The district court granted defendants’ motions for summary judgment, with the exception of plaintiffs Death on the High Seas Act (“DOHSA”) claim, and granted defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment limiting their liability to approximately $60,000 in accordance with a clause printed in the back of the ticket contract. We reverse the grant of partial summary judgment limiting recoverable damages, and hold that a contract clause that merely refers to the “ 'Convention Relating to the Carriage of Passengers and Their Luggage by Sea’ of 1976 (‘Athens Convention’)” does not reasonably communicate a liability limitation. We affirm the district court’s order in all other respects.

I. Background

In the summer of 1999, Bobbie Jo Wallis and her husband, Joel Anderson Wallis, embarked on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Grand Princess, a cruise ship owned by related companies Princess Cruises, Inc., Fairlane Shipping International…