Harris v. Polskie Linie Lotnicze

• Citation: 820 F.2d 1000
• Decision Date: 22 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-2323,86-2323
• Parties: Willie H. HARRIS, Ernestine Harris, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. POLSKIE LINIE LOTNICZE, aka Lot Polish Airlines, a Corporation, Defendant- Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Page 1000

820 F.2d 1000

Willie H. HARRIS, Ernestine Harris, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. POLSKIE LINIE LOTNICZE, aka Lot Polish Airlines, a Corporation, Defendant- Appellee.

No. 86-2323.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted May 15, 1987.

Decided June 22, 1987.

David S. Sabih, Pacific Grove, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Desmond T. Barry, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Before SNEED, ALARCON and CANBY, Circuit Judges.

SNEED, Circuit Judge:

Appellants challenge the amount of damages the district court awarded them as compensation for their son's death in an airplane crash. The district court in fixing the compensation applied Polish law. Appellants argue that it ought to have applied California law. They further assert that the damages awarded were inadequate under either Polish or California law. We affirm.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

An Ilyushin 62 airplane owned and operated by the appellee, Polskie Linie Lotnicze (LOT), crashed near Warsaw, Poland on March 14, 1980. All of the passengers died in the crash. Appellants, Willie and Ernestine Harris (the Harrises), are the parents of one passenger, Walter Harris. LOT is wholly owned by the government of Poland.

The Harrises filed a wrongful death action against LOT in the United States District for the Northern District of California. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred the action to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York for coordinated and consolidated pre-trial proceedings. That court held that the Warsaw Convention and Montreal Agreement applied. In re Air Crash Disaster, on Mar. 14, 1980, 535 F.Supp. 833, 835 (E.D.N.Y.1982), aff'd, 705 F.2d 85 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 845, 104 S.Ct. 147, 78 L.Ed.2d 138 (1983). It also held that the Montreal Agreement's $75,000 limit on liability did not apply because LOT issued tickets describing the limitation in too small a typeface. Id. at 835-39. The court remanded this case to the Northern District of California for trial solely to determine the amount of damages.

The district court for the Northern District of California concluded that Polish law governed the calculation of damages. Harris v. Polskie Linie Lotnicze, 641 F.Supp. 94, 99 (N.D.Cal.1986). Accordingly, it awarded Ernestine Harris $72,600 in lost support and $2799.78 in funeral expenses. It awarded nothing to Willie Harris. Excerpt of Record (E.R.), Tab 88, Judgment. The district court found that if California's damages law applied, Ernestine would receive an additional $10,000 for loss of love and affection of her son, which is not compensable under Poland's law. Willie, however, still would get nothing. Id. tab 88, Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, at 4. The Harrises filed a timely appeal.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo the district court's choice of law. Pereira v. Utah Transp., Inc., 764 F.2d 686, 689 (9th Cir.1985), cert. dismissed, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1253, 89 L.Ed.2d 362 (1986). The calculation of damages is a finding of fact that we review for clear error. United States ex rel. Morgan & Son Earth Moving, Inc. v. Timberland Paving & Constr. Co., 745 F.2d 595, 599 (9th Cir.1984).

III. CHOICE OF LAW

A. The Applicable Federal Statutes.

This case arises under the Warsaw Convention, Oct. 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000, 3014 Turning to the fixing of damages, we confront the Warsaw Convention, which does not precisely describe how to calculate damages in a wrongful death case. Article 24(2) provides in part that conditions and limits of the Convention shall apply to a suit for wrongful death, "without prejudice to the questions as to who are the persons who have the right to bring this suit and what are their respective rights." 49 Stat. at 3006, 3020. Evidently damages are to be measured according to the internal law of a party to the Convention. Mertens v. Flying Tiger Line, 341 F.2d 851, 858 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 816, 86 S.Ct. 38, 15 L.Ed.2d 64 (1965). The Convention, however, does not specify which party's internal law is the proper law. P. Martin, J.D. McClean & E. de Montaur Martin, Shawcross and Beaumont Air Law p VII(71) (4th ed. 25th issue 1987).

                reprinted at 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1502 app., and the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1330, 1602-1611.  Under Article 28(1) of the Convention, 49 Stat. at 3007, 3020, a suit by the Harrises for damages lies in a United States court because the United States was Walter's destination under the terms of his round-trip ticket.   See In re Alleged Food Poisoning Incident, Mar., 1984, 770 F.2d 3, 7 (2d Cir.1985).  It is the Warsaw Convention that gives United States courts jurisdiction in this case vis-a-vis the courts of other countries.  However, only the FSIA gives the federal district court jurisdiction vis-a-vis other United States courts. 1   See S. Speiser & C. Krause, Aviation Tort Law Sec. 11:39 (Supp.1986) (distinguishing jurisdiction in an international sense from jurisdiction in a domestic sense).  The FSIA provides that LOT is not immune from suit in this case.  28 U.S.C. Secs. 1603, 1605(a)(2).  Therefore the district court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1330(a)
                

This problem is easily resolved in the routine Warsaw Convention case, in which a federal court has diversity jurisdiction. See, e.g., Stud v. Trans Int'l Airlines, 727 F.2d 880, 881 (9th Cir.1984). For many years it has been the rule that a federal court sitting in diversity applies the conflict-of-law rules of the state in which it sits. Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 1021, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941); In re Aircrash on Apr. 22, 1974, 684 F.2d 1301, 1307 (9th Cir.1982) (applying California's choice-of-law rules in a Warsaw Convention case; diversity jurisdiction). This rule cannot be invoked here because ever since the FSIA was enacted, federal courts no longer have diversity jurisdiction over foreign states as defendants. ² See Ruggiero v. Compania Peruana de Vapores, 639 F.2d 872, 873-78 (2d Cir.1981). The FSIA is the exclusive source of federal jurisdiction over foreign states and thus over LOT. See McKeel v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 722 F.2d 582, 586-87 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 880, 105 S.Ct. 243, 83 L.Ed.2d 182 (1984).

B. The Federal Tort Claims Act Analogy.

Although Klaxon Co. is not applicable to this case, the FSIA may provide a solution. Indeed, the district court found "an implicit choice-of-law rule" in one section of the FSIA, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1606. 641 F.Supp. at 97. That section, in providing a special rule for cases in which death is caused, states that if "the law of the place where the action or omission occurred" provides only for punitive damages, then the FSIA imposes actual or compensatory pecuniary damages in addition. From this the district court drew the inference that Congress expected the The analogy is weak, however. The FTCA contains an explicit choice of law provision; there is no such provision in the FSIA. The FTCA provision specifies that the United States is liable in cases in which a private person "would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred." 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(b). By contrast, the FSIA, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1606, and the first paragraph of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2674 of the FTCA, provide only that a foreign state or the United States shall be liable "in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances." Omitted is the crucial language, "in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred." Both sections use similar language in the proviso addressed to cases in which the applicable law provides only for punitive damages. But, as the Harrises point out, that proviso does not apply to this case. The upshot is that the FSIA lacks a section corresponding to FTCA Sec. 1346(b). This weakens the district court's decision to apply the FTCA's choice-of-law rules in this FSIA case.

                law of the place where the "action or omission" occurred to govern all FSIA cases.  It referred to similar language in the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2674, and observed that courts choose law under the FTCA by applying the whole law, including the choice of law rules, of the place where the action or omission occurred.   See Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 9, 11, 82 S.Ct. 585, 590, 591, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962).  The district court then reasoned by analogy that the conflicts law of the place where the "action or omission" occurred should determine the choice of law in this case.
                

Our reluctance to take this course is increased by the difficulty of applying "the law of the place where the act or omission occurred" rule in this case. The place where the act or omission occurred means the place where the negligence occurred, not the place where the negligence had its effect. Richards, 369 U.S. at 9-10, 82 S.Ct. at 590-91; see O'Rourke v. Eastern Air Lines, 730 F.2d 842, 846-47 & n. 5 (2d Cir.1984) (negligence of federal air traffic controllers in New York means that New York's conflict-of-law rules apply to the United States as a defendant). Although it is clear that the airplane crashed in Poland, it is not clear where the negligence occurred. Because Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention makes the carrier liable without regard to negligence, 49 Stat. at 3005, 3018, the record in this case contains no factual findings on the negligence issue. The district court sidestepped this issue by deciding to regard the crash itself as the act or omission giving rise to liability under the FSIA in a Warsaw Convention case. 641 F.Supp. at 98-99. This permitted the district court to apply Poland's choice-of-law rule.

We do not disagree with the district court's choice; we simply are not persuaded...