Princess Cruises has scored a victory in the sprawling legal fight seeking to hold it accountable for potential coronavirus exposure on one of its ships.

US District Judge Gary Klausner has thrown out 15 of the 27 lawsuits brought by passengers aboard the 21 February sailing of the 107,500-gt Grand Princess (built 1998) from San Francisco.

Klausner, of the federal court for the Central District of California, ruled that without symptoms, the passengers did not have a case and would expand liability to an extreme extent.