Acevedo-Reinoso v. Iberia Lineas Aereas De Espana

• Decision Date: 23 May 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-1699.,05-1699.
• Citation: 449 F.3d 7
• Parties: Michel ACEVEDO-REINOSO, Plaintiff, Appellant, María T. Pacheco-González, Plaintiff, v. IBERIA LÍNEAS AÉREAS DE ESPAÑA S.A.; Jane Doe, Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

449 F.3d 7

Michel ACEVEDO-REINOSO, Plaintiff, Appellant María T. Pacheco-González, Plaintiff, v. IBERIA LÍNEAS AÉREAS DE ESPAÑA S.A.; Jane Doe, Defendants, Appellees.

No. 05-1699.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard November 8, 2005.

Decided May 23, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Alfredo Fernández-Martínez, with whom Delgado & Fernández, LLP was on brief, for appellant Michel Acevedo-Reinoso.

Juan R. Marchand-Quintero, with whom Francisco Ortiz-Santini was on brief, for appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, LIPEZ, and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

This case requires us to decide whether a passenger's state tort claim against an international air carrier was preempted by the Warsaw Convention¹ and therefore properly dismissed by the district court. For the reasons set forth below, we vacate the district court's judgment granting the motion to dismiss and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

The following facts are drawn from the complaint. Michel Acevedo-Reinoso is a citizen of Cuba with legal residence in the United States. At the time of this action, Acevedo-Reinoso resided in Puerto Rico. In October 2002, Acevedo-Reinoso, a banking executive, was invited to participate in an annual convention hosted by the Mortgage Loan Officers Association ("Association") in Madrid, Spain. The Association contracted with a travel agency, The Travel Place, to coordinate all travel arrangements for attendees to the convention. The Travel Place assured Acevedo-Reinoso that he would not require a visa, and instead need only show his Cuban passport and U.S. resident alien card upon entry to Spain. On November 13, 2002, Acevedo-Reinoso and his partner, Maria Pacheco-Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen (collectively, "Plaintiffs"), arrived at the Iberia Líneas Aéreas Españolas, S.A. ("Iberia") airline counter in Puerto Rico to check in. The Iberia agent informed Acevedo-Reinoso and Pacheco-Gonzalez that all immigration documents were in place and gave them their tickets and boarding passes.

Upon arriving in Spain on November 14, 2002, a Spanish immigration officer requested passports from all passengers. When Acevedo-Reinoso showed his Cuban passport, the Spanish government ordered his immediate detention. Acevedo-Reinoso was questioned, represented by counsel appointed by the Spanish government, and detained with other allegedly illegal immigrants in a closed room in the airport. Meanwhile, Pacheco-Gonzalez suffered great anguish at seeing her partner detained in front of his peers in the banking industry, mocked by Spanish immigration officers, and humiliated. Acevedo-Reinoso's appointed counsel provided him with several documents for his review. At the behest of a Spanish officer who told him the documents were for his own benefit, Acevedo-Reinoso signed the documents without reading them, and was subsequently told that he would be deported to his country of origin—Cuba. Acevedo-Reinoso suffered great anguish thinking about the punishment he would face at the hands of Cuban authorities upon returning to a country he was forced to leave many years ago, and the suffering—financial and otherwise—of his partner and two children who would be forced to live without him in Puerto Rico.

Later that evening, Acevedo-Reinoso was taken to another room where he was strip-searched and humiliated by a female Spanish officer. He was then taken to a detention room with hundreds of allegedly illegal immigrants, where he was served his first meal of the day and was ordered to pass the night in a cold room that included a row of bunk beds without sheets or blankets. During this time, Acevedo-Reinoso observed Spanish officers beating a young adolescent from Ecuador who stood up to visit the restroom. The following morning, after speaking with Pacheco-Gonzalez about a letter she had obtained from the General Manager of the hotel in Spain assuming responsibility for him during his stay, Acevedo-Reinoso inquired whether he could be sent back to Puerto Rico. Spanish officers declined to accept this proposition. Pacheco-Gonzalez was extremely nervous about her partner's future and the well-being of herself and her children. The following day, Acevedo-Reinoso was escorted by several Spanish guards to an Iberia airplane bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, detained until airline crew boarded the airplane, and thereafter released.

As a result of the humiliation, emotional distress, and mental anguish they experienced, Plaintiffs sued Iberia, a foreign entity, in federal court, alleging negligence under Puerto Rico law.² On February 25, 2003, Iberia brought a motion to dismiss for failure to join as indispensable parties The Travel Company and its owner. That motion was denied. Iberia then filed its answer to Plaintiffs' complaint. After discovery and the entry of a pretrial order, Iberia filed a second motion to dismiss, based on Plaintiffs' failure to state a claim under the Convention, and, in the alternative, under Puerto Rico law. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs' action for failure to state a claim under the Convention. Acevedo-Reinoso appealed.³

II.

We review the district court's grant of Iberia's motion to dismiss de novo. See SFW Arecibo, Ltd. v. Rodríguez, 415 F.3d 135, 138 (1st Cir.2005). To that end, we accept as true the well-pleaded factual allegations of the complaint, drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-movant, Acevedo-Reinoso. See id. at 138-39. "Our goal is to determine whether the complaint, so read, alleges facts sufficient to make out a cognizable claim. In so doing, we are free to affirm on any basis supported by the record." Carroll v. Xerox Corp., 294 F.3d 231, 241 (1st Cir.2002) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

A. Applicability of the Warsaw Convention

1. The Warsaw Convention

The Convention, as amended by the Montreal Agreement,⁴ governs the liability of international air carriers for "passenger injuries occurring `on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking.'"⁵ El Al Israel Airlines, 525 U.S. at 172, 119 S.Ct. 662 (quoting Convention art. 17); see Langadinos v. American Airlines, Inc., 199 F.3d 68, 70 (1st Cir.2000). The Convention is preemptive: a carrier is not subject to liability under local law for passenger injuries "covered by" the Convention, that is, "all personal injury cases stemming from occurrences on board an aircraft or in embarking or disembarking." El Al Israel Airlines, 525 U.S. at 168, 119 S.Ct. 662 (adopting Government's construction of Convention); see also Convention art. 24 (stating that in personal injury cases "covered by" the Convention, "any action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in this convention"⁶). The corollary is also true:

the Convention's preemptive effect on local law extends no further than the Convention's own substantive scope. A carrier, therefore, is indisputably subject to liability under local law for injuries arising outside of that scope: e.g., for passenger injuries occurring before any of the operations of embarking or disembarking.

El Al Israel Airlines, 525 U.S. at 172, 119 S.Ct. 662 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Alitalia Airlines, S.p.A., 347 F.3d 448, 456 (2d Cir.2003) ("As a treaty adhered to by the United States, it is the supreme law of the land and trumps local law when it applies.") (emphasis added).

"Treaty interpretation," we have noted, "is a purely legal exercise." McCarthy, 56 F.3d at 317 (interpreting meaning of "embarking" and "disembarking" under Convention). Therefore, the question [of] whether a passenger's injury was sustained "on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking," Convention art. 17, "is a question of law to be decided by the court" based on the facts of each case, Marotte v. American Airlines, Inc., 296 F.3d 1255, 1259 (11th Cir.2002). See also Schmidkunz v. Scandinavian Airlines Sys., 628 F.2d 1205, 1207 (9th Cir. 1980) (same). Since "[t]he terms `embarking' and `disembarking' are not specifically defined in the Convention," Marotte, 296 F.3d at 1259, and absent some direction from the Supreme Court, which has not yet had occasion to define them, we have found "(1) the passenger's activity at the time of injury, (2) his or her whereabouts when injured, and (3) the extent to which the carrier was exercising control ... highly relevant in determining the applicability of [the Convention]." McCarthy, 56 F.3d at 317.

If the Convention applies (and local law is thereby preempted), the next question is whether the carrier is liable under the Convention. This inquiry involves a determination of whether there was an "accident," i.e., "an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger," Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 405, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985); whether the passenger suffered a compensable injury, i.e., "death, physical injury, or physical manifestation of injury," Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 U.S. 530, 552, 111 S.Ct. 1489, 113 L.Ed.2d 569 (1991); and whether the accident was a proximate cause of the passenger's injury, see Langadinos, 199 F.3d at 71.

2. The District Court Proceeding

The district court held that Plaintiffs' Puerto Rico tort claim was preempted by the Convention because Plaintiffs failed to state a claim for liability under the Convention. According to the district court, "plaintiffs may not sue a carrier pursuant to state law if they are barred from recovering under the convention." The district court noted that Plaintiffs did not allege that "they suffered death, physical injury or physical manifestation of an injury"— one of the requirements for proving liability under the Convention.⁷ Rather, Plaintiffs alleged only "humiliation, embarrassment, and great anguish"—none...