Bonn v. Puerto Rico Intern. Airlines, Inc., Nos. 74-1120

• Decision Date: 12 June 1975
• Docket Number: Nos. 74-1120
• Citation: 518 F.2d 89
• Parties: Edith BONN, etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, v. PUERTO RICO INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES, INC., et al., and United States of America, Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants. to 74-1122.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 89

518 F.2d 89

Edith BONN, etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, v. PUERTO RICO INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES, INC., et al., and United

States of America, Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants.

Nos. 74-1120 to 74-1122.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Argued Feb. 7, 1975.

Decided June 12, 1975.

Ronald R. Glancz, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Civ.Div., Appellate Section, Dept. of Justice, with whom Carla A. Hills, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Julio Morales-Sanchez, U. S. Atty., were on brief, for the United States and others.

Harry Anduze Montano, San Juan, P. R., with whom Rieckehoff, Calderon, Rosa-Silva & Vargas, Hato Rey, P. R., was on brief, for Great American Ins. Co.

Ricardo L. Rodriguez Padilla, San Juan, P. R., with whom Charles De Mier Le Blanc and Gonzales & Rodriguez, San Juan, P. R., were on brief, for Gregory Kirchoff and others.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, McENTEE and CAMPBELL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiffs commenced these wrongful death and survival actions to recover damages arising out of the deaths of Frank and Helen Kirchoff (both 51 years old), who were killed on March 5, 1969, while passengers in an airplane which crashed in the El Junque mountain range in the vicinity of San Juan, Puerto Rico, enroute from St. Thomas to San Juan. Plaintiffs are the administratrix of the decedents' estates and their three children, Gregory (Frank's son by a previous marriage), Craig, and Eric, who at the time of their parents' death were 21, 9 and 7 years of age respectively. The defendants are Puerto Rico International Airlines, Inc. (herein Prinair), a Puerto Rican corporation, which was the owner and operator of the aircraft, and the United States of America, which operated air traffic control facilities in San Juan. The decedents were both residents of the Virgin Islands, as are their children and administratrix. Jurisdiction over the private defendants was founded upon diversity of citizenship, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, and over the United States upon the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b).

The trial was limited to the issue of damages, pursuant to an admission of liability by the parties, after which a joint judgment was to be entered against Great American Insurance Company (the airline's insurer) and the United States. The case was tried to a jury, which returned the following special verdict against the defendants:

                Beneficiaries' Pain and Suffering
                  and Mental Anguish                      $1,045,000
                Economic Loss                                304,605
                Decedents' Conscious Pain and Suffering
                  Including Fear of Impending Death           36,000
                                                          ----------
                TOTAL                                     $1,385,605
                

Defendants both filed motions for a mistrial, judgment notwithstanding the verdict, new trial and remittitur. On January 31, 1974, the district court entered judgments on the verdict against both defendants, except for a remittitur of $26,000 with respect to plaintiffs' damages for decedents' conscious pain and suffering. The defendants United States and Prinair, through its insurer Great American Insurance Company, have appealed on the ground that the jury's award for the beneficiaries' pain and suffering and mental anguish was erroneous and excessive. Plaintiffs have appealed the remittitur part of the district court's order, and also the denial of attorneys fees and pre-judgment interest.

Defendants first contend that the court should have applied the law of the Virgin Islands, 1A Virgin Islands Code ch. 5, § 76, limiting wrongful death recovery to pecuniary loss, see Williams v. Dowling, 318 F.2d 642 (3d Cir. 1963), rather than the law of Puerto Rico which permits an award for beneficiaries' pain and suffering, Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Gonzalez Rivera, 358 F.2d 480, 482-83 (1st Cir. 1966). Choice of law in Federal Tort Claims actions is governed by the conflicts principles of the jurisdiction where the tortious act occurred. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b) (1970); Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 10-15, 82 S.Ct. 585, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962). Choice of law in diversity actions is determined by the conflicts principles of the forum. Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941). Thus the conflicts law of Puerto Rico is controlling.

In Fornaris v. American Surety Co., 93 P.R.R. 28, 47 (1966), an airplane owned by a Puerto Rico corporation and carrying Puerto Rico residents left Puerto Rico and crashed in the Virgin Islands, killing all the passengers. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico adopted the principle that rights and liabilities in tort are to be determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction having the dominant contacts with the parties and the occurrence, see Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws §§ 145, 175, determined that Puerto Rico was the appropriate jurisdiction and applied its unlimited measure of damages in a suit by decedents' relatives. Fornaris, where the parties shared a common domicile and the place of accident was fortuitous, is the situation described in Restatement, supra § 171, comment b as an exception to the usual principle, see § 175, Reporter's Note at 525, that place of conduct and injury are the predominant contacts.

Here, the conduct and the injury occurred in Puerto Rico and there was no common domicile. The Virgin Islands has the most readily apparent interest in the narrow issue as to which the conflicts problem has arisen namely, the proper measure of recovery for Virgin Islands next of kin whose parents, also Virgin Islanders, were killed. But Puerto Rico does have an interest in the outcome which counterbalances that of the Virgin Islands. The airline defendant is a Puerto Rico corporation. Puerto Rico has an interest in defendant, a citizen of Puerto Rico and a local taxpayer, business, and employer, just as the Virgin Islands has an interest in plaintiffs, its citizens and potential wards.

In the present case it appears to us that the process of balancing contacts results either in a stand-off or a slight tilt toward Puerto Rico. In either event the residual traditional factors of the place of conduct and the place of injury would seem to us determinative. The Virgin Island's major interest in limiting recovery is to protect its domiciliaries who might be defendants, or its courts. Neither are involved here. It would not be adversely affected by having its plaintiff-domiciliaries reap a larger recovery than they would have received under its own law. And although one factor in contacts analysis is "the place where the relationship is centered" i. e., the Virgin Islands, where the tickets were bought, such a factor does not, in this kind of relationship, warrant a heavy weight in the scales.

On the other hand, as Justice Rigau wrote in Fornaris, supra, 93 P.R.R. at 38, Puerto Rico is the place "having greater interest in that (sic) the wrongful act be not committed, or, if committed, that due reparation be made." The commentary accompanying the current version of the Restatement, § 145, repeats these twin factors in stating that "subject only to rare exceptions, the local law of the state where conduct and injury occurred will be applied to determine whether the actor satisfied minimum standards of acceptable conduct and whether the interest affected by the actor's conduct was entitled to legal protection . . . ." § 145(1), Comment d, at 417. See also id., Comment e, Illustration 2, at 423. We recognize that the Virgin Islands may have some interest in protecting Prinair, which is doing business there, from large recoveries. But Prinair is doing business in Puerto Rico too and in much greater measure; it is also domiciled and managed there. See State ex rel. Broglin v. Nangle, 510 S.W.2d 699, 702-04 (Mo.1974); Griffiths v. United Air Lines, Inc., 416 Pa. 1, 203 A.2d 796, 807 (1964); Restatement, § 145, Comment e at 420-21. No basis exists for preferring the Virgin Islands' attenuated protection interest over Puerto Rico's deterrence interest, especially in light of the presumption that Puerto Rico's law should apply both as the locus of the accident, Restatement, §§ 178, 175, and the forum, Hurtado v. Superior Court, 11 Cal.3d 574, 114 Cal.Rptr. 106, 522 P.2d 666, 670 (1974), quoting B. Currie, Selected Essays on Conflicts of Law 183 (1963.) ¹ The court did not err in applying the Puerto Rico measure of damages.

Defendants next contend that even if plaintiff's pain, suffering and mental anguish are compensable, the jury's award for this element of damages was excessive. ² While this is primarily a matter for the trial court, we are constrained to agree. See Compania Transatlantica Espanola S. A. v. Melendez Torres, 358 F.2d 209, 214 (1st Cir. 1966). The evidence in this case did not in our view justify the gross deviation between the verdict here and awards in other comparable Puerto Rico cases. ³ Plaintiffs' claims rest primarily on their allegedly precarious psychological conditions which they attribute to the trauma of the sudden loss of their parents. Dr. Mayoral, their psychiatric expert hired to interview them for the trial, was quite pessimistic about their condition and prognosis, ⁴ though Mrs. Gjessing, the younger boys' foster-mother, was considerably more sanguine. ⁵ Moreover, all three suffer in varying degrees from dyslexia, an inherited neurological disorder which impairs the learning abilities of average and bright persons and often occasions secondary emotional disorders stemming from frustration at learning difficulties. Testimony and pre-accident reports conclusively establish that the children exhibited many of their present emotional problems before their parents' death ⁶ and even Dr. Mayoral acknowledged this though he was firm in his opinion that the accident was the major causative factor. Finally, Dr. Mayoral testified that with intensive psychiatric care plaintiffs had a fair...