Air France v Saks
| Date | 04 March 1985 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
(Burger, Chief Justice; Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Rehnquist, Stevens and O'Connor, Justices)
Air Civil air transport Liability of international air carriers for accidents to passengers Whether absolute Definition of accident Whether describing cause, or event of injury to passenger Warsaw Convention, 1929, Article 17
Treaties Interpretation Bilingual treaties Interpretation of English version of treaty by reference to French version Use of foreign language dictionaries Recourse to travaux prparatoires Comparison of treaty provision with other provisions of same treaty Reference to other treaties National court decisions of other treaty signatories Subsequent conduct of the parties Warsaw Convention, 1929, Article 17
Relationship of international law and municipal law Treaties Application and interpretation by national courts Reference to decisions of national courts in other States The law of the United States
Summary: The facts:The respondent, while travelling as a passenger on an aircraft operated by the petitioner, felt severe pressure and pain in her left ear during the descent of the aircraft. On further examination it was discovered that the respondent had become permanently deaf in her left ear. The respondent then brought an acton against the petitioner alleging that it had violated Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air, 1929 (the Warsaw Convention), which made air carriers liable for injuries sustained by a passenger if the accident which caused the damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft . The respondent maintained that the term accident should be defined as a hazard of air travel and that the injury she had sustained had been caused by such a hazard.
The District Court held that the aircraft's pressurization system had been operating normally at the relevant time and the term accident, as used in Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, referred to an unusual or unexpected happening. It followed that a normal cabin pressure change did not constitute an accident within the meaning of Article 17. The Court of Appeals held that the terms, history and policy of both the Warsaw Convention and the Montreal Agreement, 1966,1 imposed an absolute liability on air carriers for any injuries that were caused to passengers by the risks inherent in air travel. The Court further held that the definition of the term accident as provided for in Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, 1944(the 1944 Convention)2 was consistent with the history and policy of both the Warsaw Convention and the Montreal Agreement and that normal cabin pressure changes constituted an accident within the meaning of that definition. The petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court.
Held:The appeal was allowed.
(1) The term accident was not defined by Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention. However, the difference in the wording of Article 17, which imposed liability for injuries to passengers caused by an accident, and Article 18 which imposed liability for the destruction or loss of baggage by an occurrence implied that the word accident had a different meaning from the word occurrence. Article 17 referred to an accident which caused the passenger's injury and not to an accident which was the passenger's injury, which implied that the term accident referred to the cause of the injury, rather than the occurrence of the injury itself (pp. 11718).
(2) As the Warsaw Convention had originally been drafted in French the Court could consider the meaning of the terms in the French text. According to authoritative French dictionaries, the term accident when used to describe the cause of an injury, rather than the event of that injury, was usually defined as a fortuitous, unexpected, unusual or unintentional event (p. 119).
(3) This interpretation of Article 17 was consistent with the negotiating history of the Convention, the subsequent conduct of the parties to the Convention and the weight of precedent in both foreign and United States courts (p. 119).
(4) Although the Montreal Agreement, 1966, had imposed absolute liability on air carriers by providing for the waiver of the due care defences in Article 20(1) of the Warsaw Convention, its provisions did not in any way affect Article 17 of the Convention, because Article 17 involved an inquiry into the nature of the event which caused the injury, rather than an inquiry
into the care taken by the airline in question to avert that injury (pp. 1234)(5) The 1944 Convention and Annex 13 thereof expressly applied to aircraft accident investigations and not to the principles governing the liability of air carriers to passengers under the Warsaw Convention. Accordingly, the definition of the term accident contained in Annex 13 of the 1944 Convention could not be used for the purposes of interpreting Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention (p. 124).
(6) Therefore, liability under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention could only arise if a passenger's injury was caused by an unexpected or unusual event or happening that was external to the passenger and not where the injury resulted from the passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal and expected operation of the aircraft. Accordingly, the petitioner was not liable under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention (pp. 1223).
The following is the text of the opinion of the Court, delivered by Justice O'Connor:
Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention1 makes air carriers liable for injuries sustained by a passenger if the accident which caused the damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking. We granted certiorari, 469 US 815, 83 L Ed 2d 28, 105 S Ct 80 (1984), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals as to the proper definition of the word accident as used in this international air carriage treaty.
On November 16, 1980, respondent Valerie Saks boarded an Air France jetliner in Paris for a 12-hour flight to Los Angeles. The flight went smoothly in all respects until, as the aircraft descended to Los Angeles, Saks felt severe pressure and pain in her left ear. The pain continued after the plane landed, but Saks disembarked without informing any Air France crew member or employee of her ailment. Five days later, Saks consulted a doctor who concluded that she had become permanently deaf in her left ear.
Saks filed suit against Air France in California state court, alleging that her hearing loss was caused by negligent maintenance and operation of the jetliner's pressurization system. App 2. The case was removed to the United States District Court for the Central District of California. After extensive discovery, Air France moved for summary judgment on the ground that respondent could not prove that her injury was caused by an accident within the meaning of the Warsaw Convention. The term accident, according to Air France, means an abnormal, unusual or unexpected occurrence aboard the aircraft. Id., at 9. All the available evidence, including the postflight reports, pilot's affidavit, and passenger testimony, indicated that the aircraft's pressurization system had operated in the usual manner. Accordingly, the airline contended that the suit should be dismissed because the only alleged cause of respondent's injurynormal operation of a pressurization systemcould not qualify as an accident. In her opposition to the summary judgment motion, Saks acknowledged that [t]he sole question of law presented by the parties is whether a loss of hearing proximately caused by normal operation of the aircraft's pressurization system is an accident within the meaning of Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention Id., at 30. She argued that accident should be defined as a hazard of air travel, and that her injury had indeed been caused by such a hazard.
Relying on precedent which defines the term accident in Article 17 as an unusual or unexpected happening, see DeMarines v KLM Royal Dutch AirlinesECASUNK, 580 F2d 1193, 1196 (CA3 1978), the District Court granted summary judgment to Air France. See also Warshaw v Trans World Airlines, Inc.UNK 442 F Supp 400, 412413 (ED Pa 1977) (normal cabin pressure changes are not accidents within the meaning of Article 17). A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 724 F2d 1383 (1984). The...
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