Humberto Reyes v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD.

USCA11 Case: 25-10512 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/04/2026 Page: 1 of 8

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-10512 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ HUMBERTO REYES, An individual, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES, LTD., A Liberian Corporation, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:24-cv-20542-JEM ____________________ Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and KIDD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: USCA11 Case: 25-10512 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/04/2026 Page: 2 of 8

2 Opinion of the Court 25-10512 Appellant Humberto Reyes was a passenger on one of Ap- pellee Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd.’s cruise ships. After disem- barking the ship, Reyes was injured while descending an escalator.

Reyes sued Royal Caribbean, alleging a single count of negligence.

The district court granted Royal Caribbean’s motion to dismiss. It concluded that the complaint failed to allege facts sufficient to es- tablish that Royal Caribbean was on notice of an alleged dangerous condition regarding the escalator. The district court also denied Reyes’s motion to amend his complaint. It found that his proposed amended complaint didn’t remedy the pleading defect and there- fore failed to state a cause of action. And because amending the complaint as Reyes proposed would have been futile, the district court directed the clerk of the court to close the case.

Reyes now appeals. After careful consideration, we affirm.

I.

Reyes was a fare-paying passenger on Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship “Freedom of the Seas.” On February 24, 2023, he dis- embarked from the ship and headed to Royal Caribbean’s terminal in the Port of Miami. According to Reyes, Royal Caribbean em- ployees directed him and other passengers to board an escalator with their luggage, down to a lower floor where the immigration checkpoint and exits were located. Reyes says that, based on the employees’ instructions, other passengers got on the escalator close together and at the same time. As a result, passengers and their luggage were on the escalator steps in front of and behind Reyes.

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25-10512 Opinion of the Court 3 As Reyes approached the bottom of the escalator, the lug- gage of a passenger directly in front of him became lodged or stuck in one of the escalator steps. Consequently, alarms from the esca- lator sounded. Still, the escalator continued to operate. A passen- ger in front of Reyes fell backwards and into another passenger, who then fell into Reyes. Reyes claims he sustained severe and permanent bodily injury as a result of this incident.

Based on these facts, Reyes filed a one-count complaint al- leging negligence against Royal Caribbean. In turn, Royal Carib- bean moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), Fed. R. Civ. P. It ar- gued that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted because it didn’t sufficiently allege that Royal Car- ibbean was on notice of the risk-creating condition. Royal Carib- bean further argued that the complaint warranted dismissal be- cause it was unclear what the risk-creating condition was. Accord- ing to Royal Caribbean, the allegations did not make clear whether it was the escalator, the method of directing passengers onto the escalator, the presence of luggage on the escalator, or some com- bination of all these things that caused the alleged dangerous con- dition. But no matter what it was, Royal Caribbean contended, the complaint failed to allege that Royal Caribbean was on actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition.

Rather than addressing the motion substantively, Reyes in- stead elected to seek leave to file an amended complaint. He claimed the proposed amended complaint “correct[ed] the defects USCA11 Case: 25-10512 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/04/2026 Page: 4 of 8

4 Opinion of the Court 25-10512 raised by [Royal Caribbean’s] Motion to Dismiss” and rendered the motion to dismiss moot.

Reyes’s proposed amended complaint again contained a sin- gle count of negligence against Royal Caribbean. The new itera- tion of the complaint added only two allegations. First, Reyes al- leged that, “[a]s a result of overloading the subject escalators with passengers and their luggage, [Royal Caribbean] created a danger- ous condition pertaining to the subject escalators.” Second, Reyes alleged that Royal Caribbean “knew or should have known that overloading the subject escalator presented a dangerous condition to occupants of the subject escalator.”

Royal Caribbean opposed Reyes’s motion for leave to amend the complaint. It argued that the amendment would be fu- tile because the proposed amended complaint did not fix the de- fects with respect to notice and vagueness. As a result, Royal Car- ibbean urged, the proposed amended complaint would still be sub- ject to dismissal. Reyes did not file a reply to address Royal Carib- bean’s arguments.

The district court ultimately agreed that both the complaint and proposed amended complaint failed to adequately plead that Royal Caribbean had notice of the alleged dangerous condition.

And the court determined that, “[a]s a whole, [Reyes] fail[ed] to properly allege any negligence on [Royal Caribbean’s] part.” So the district court granted Royal Caribbean’s motion to dismiss the complaint.

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25-10512 Opinion of the Court 5 The court also denied Reyes’s motion for leave to amend. It found that allowing amendment of the complaint as Reyes pro- posed would be futile. More specifically, the district court deter- mined that the amended complaint did not contain facts establish- ing prior substantially similar incidents or that the defective condi- tion existed for a time sufficient to invite corrective measures. Ra- ther, the court saw the “minimal additions” about notice as “legal conclusion[s] masquerading as fact.” After denying the motion to amend, the district court directed the clerk to close the case.

II.

We review de novo the district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Ironworkers Local Union 68 v. AstraZeneca Pharm., LP, 634 F.3d 1352, 1359 (11th Cir. 2011). In conducting our review, we accept the allegations in the complaint as true and con- strue them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Id. That said, we need not accept as true allegations in a complaint that are merely legal conclusions. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 678, 678 (2009).

We usually review for abuse of discretion a district court’s denial of a motion to amend a complaint. Corsello v. Lincare, Inc., 428 F.3d 1008, 1012 (11th Cir. 2005). But “when the district court denies the plaintiff leave to amend due to futility, we review the denial de novo because it is concluding that as a matter of law an amended complaint would necessarily fail.” Fla. Evergreen Foliage v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co., 470 F.3d 1036, 1040 (11th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). A request to amend a complaint is futile when USCA11 Case: 25-10512 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/04/2026 Page: 6 of 8

6 Opinion of the Court 25-10512 the amended complaint is still subject to dismissal. Cockrell v. Sparks, 510 F.3d 1307, 1310 (11th Cir. 2007).

III.

On appeal, Reyes contends the district court erred in deny- ing him leave to amend his complaint on the grounds that his pro- posed amendment was futile. In short, he asserts that he pled suf- ficient facts under Rule 8(a)(2) to support his negligence claim.

Reyes acknowledges that typically, as a prerequisite to im- posing liability on Royal Caribbean for its negligence, a plaintiff must show that Royal Caribbean had actual or constructive notice of the risk-creating condition. But he argues that he need not es- tablish notice on Royal Caribbean’s part if it created the hazardous condition.

Reyes concedes that he failed to meet the notice require- ment by alleging that substantially similar prior incidents involving the escalator had occurred. Reyes also admits that he could have pled more facts to show that the alarm on the escalator was sound- ing long enough to place Royal Caribbean on notice of the alleg- edly dangerous condition, providing sufficient time for Royal Car- ibbean to take corrective measures. But Reyes says these pleading deficiencies do not doom his negligence claim. He argues he can establish constructive notice by pleading that Royal Caribbean cre- ated the risk-causing condition.

We disagree. As we’ve noted, the district court held that Reyes failed to meet the notice requirements because he didn’t al- lege substantially similar prior incidents involving the escalator.

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25-10512 Opinion of the Court 7 And on appeal, Reyes concedes that he didn’t do so. When, as here, a litigant fails to address the basis for the district court’s ruling, he abandons the issue on appeal. Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 680 (11th Cir. 2014).

As for the issue Reyes raises for the first time on appeal— that he didn’t need to show notice because Royal Caribbean cre- ated the hazard—Reyes forfeited that. Reyes didn’t file a substan- tive response to Royal Caribbean’s motion to dismiss, so he did not present the district court with his newly minted appellate issue. To the contrary, Reyes sought leave to amend his complaint, merely stating that he had “correct[ed] the defects raised by [Royal Carib- bean’s] Motion to Dismiss.” Reyes’s contention that he corrected the defects of pleading notice runs contrary to his present position that he is not required to plead notice at all. Reyes likewise did not present to the district court his alternative theory that he could es- tablish constructive notice on Royal Caribbean’s part by alleging that it created the dangerous condition.

Generally, we will not consider an issue that a party failed to raise in the district court. Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004). That’s because we deem is- sues not raised in the district court to be forfeited. See id. And be- cause none of the exceptions to the rule apply here, we conclude that Reyes forfeited the issue that he was not required to plead Royal Caribbean’s notice of the allegedly dangerous condition where it created that condition. Id. at 1332.

IV.

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8 Opinion of the Court 25-10512 For these reasons we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Reyes’s complaint and its denial of Reyes’s motion for leave to file an amended complaint.

AFFIRMED.