The first of many lawsuits against the Costa Cruise line was filed in Miami Friday.
Costa's parent company, Miami based Carnival Cruise lines, is named in the suit that seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and another $450 million in punitive damages.
Six people are named as plaintiffs in the individual lawsuit.
"We expect to have 2,000 individuals," said Marc Bern, an attorney from a New York based law firm that filed the suit.
"They have to step up and take responsibility for actions that not only should be recompensed in the civil justice system -- but certainly border on criminal," Bern told Local 10's Terrell Forney.
The 4,200 passengers and crew of the ill-fated Costa Concordia may never recover from the mental trauma that they endured on the night their ship nearly sank off the coast of Italy.
On January 13th, the captain of the Concordia is accused of steering the luxury cruise ship too close to land and allowing it to run aground, rupturing a massive hole in the ship's hull.
Seventeen people were killed and another 15 people were still presumed missing as of Saturday.
Since the tragedy, the cruise line has said it will refund the amount of the cruise for survivors and reimburse for travel and other expenses incurred. The cruise line will also give each survivor more than $14,000.
"I think that is one of the most horrendous slaps in the face they can say," said Bern, who was calling on Costa to settle for a much larger sum out of court.
The lawsuit could take nearly a decade to wind its way through the court system, which is why Bern and other attorneys are hoping the cruise line settles out of court to offer survivors a much quicker financial relief.
"They should step up and do the right thing," said Bern.
Costa Cruise lines had not responded to a request for comment Saturday.