Hosaka v. United Airlines, Inc.
| Decision Date | 18 September 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-15244.,No. 00-15224.,No. 00-15226.,No. 00-15225.,No. 00-15228.,No. 00-15230.,No. 01-15131.,No. 00-15242.,No. 00-15238.,No. 01-15123.,No. 00-15231.,No. 01-15124.,No. 00-15239.,No. 00-15229.,No. 01-15120.,No. 00-15223.,No. 00-15241.,No. 00-15243.,00-15223.,00-15224.,00-15225.,00-15226.,00-15228.,00-15229.,00-15230.,00-15231.,00-15238.,00-15239.,00-15241.,00-15242.,00-15243.,00-15244.,01-15120.,01-15123.,01-15124.,01-15131. |
| Citation | 305 F.3d 989 |
| Parties | Katsuko HOSAKA, individually and on behalf of the Estate and heirs of Sadao Hosaka, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED AIRLINES, INC.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Takeo Yoshikawa; Kimiko Yoshikawa; Yae Yoshikawa; Ayako Yoshikawa; Yuki Yoshikawa; Miyoko Nakazato, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Takehito Yoshikawa; Nami Yoshikawa; Sachiyo Yoshikawa, a minor, and Chizuru Yoshikawa, a minor by and through their guardian ad litem Takehito Yoshikawa, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Nobuyuki Tanaka; Kinuyo Tanaka; Yukiko Tanaka; Makiko Tanaka, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Koja Teshima; Kumiko Teshima, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Kozo Yamada; Isa Yamada; Mashiko Yamada; Chizuru Yamada, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Nobuaki Mizuno; Takako Mizuno, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Takashi Onishi; Junko Onishi; Masaya Onishis; Mihiko Onishi, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Yasuo Tanaka; Susumu Tanaka; Ayako Tanaka, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Nubuo Shiga, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Kimee Shiga, Plaintiff, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Izumi Tosaka, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Hatsumi Ito, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. United Airlines, Inc.; UAL Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Takamasa Kataura, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Machie Taira, Plaintiff, v. United Airlines, Inc.; Ual Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Kaori Ito, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. United Airlines, Inc.; Ual Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Shuichi Inako; Hisako Iako; Osamu Inako; Hiroshi Inako, a minor, by and through his guardian ad litem Shuichi Inako, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; Ual Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Shuichiro Minami; Yuriko Minami; Takahiro Minami, a minor, by and through guardian ad litem Shuichiro Minami; Tomohiro Minami, a minor, by and through guardian ad litem Shuichiro Minami, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. United Airlines, Inc.; Ual Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Masaki Konuma, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. United Airlines, Inc.; Ual Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Keiko Hirase, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. United Airlines, Inc.; Ual Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Walter J. Pakter, Law Offices of Walter J. Pakter, Gerald C. Sterns, Sterns, Susie Injijian, Sterns & Walker; Tesfaye W. Tsadik, Law Offices of Tesfaye W. Tsadik, Oakland, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants.
Richard G. Grotch and Clinton H. Coddington, Coddington, Hicks & Danforth, Redwood City, CA, for the defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Martin J. Jenkins, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. Nos. CV-99-02905-MJJ, CV-99-03710-MJJ, CV-99-03708-MJJ, CV-99-02939-MJJ, CV-99-02912-MJJ, CV-99-02911-MJJ, CV-99-03712-MJJ, CV-99-04219-MJJ, CV-99-02909-MJJ, CV-99-02908-MJJ, CV-99-02907-MJJ, CV-99-02906-MJJ, CV-98-04075-MJJ, CV-99-02210-MJJ, CV-99-05063-MJJ, CV-99-05062-MJJ, CV-99-05308-MJJ, CV-99-05061-MJJ.
Before REINHARDT and FISHER, Circuit Judges, and MOLLOY, District Judge.*
In these consolidated appeals, plaintiffs challenge the district court's dismissal of their actions on the ground of forum non conveniens. Plaintiffs brought claims under the Warsaw Convention arising out of injuries sustained when their United Airlines flight from Tokyo to Hawaii encountered turbulence over the Pacific Ocean. Applying the federal common law doctrine of forum non conveniens, the district court dismissed plaintiffs' actions in favor of a more convenient forum in Japan. Plaintiffs contend it was error for the district court to entertain United's motions for forum non conveniens because the Warsaw Convention, which establishes four forums in which an action arising under the treaty must be brought, precludes application of that doctrine here. We agree. We hold that Article 28(1) of the Warsaw Convention overrides the discretionary power of the federal courts to dismiss an action for forum non conveniens.1 Accordingly, the judgments of the district court dismissing these actions on the ground of forum non conveniens are reversed.
These related cases were brought by passengers on United Air Lines Flight 826, which was scheduled to fly from Tokyo, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii on December 29, 1997. Flight 826 encountered severe turbulence over the Pacific Ocean, approximately three hours into the flight. The turbulence resulted in the death of one passenger and injuries to many others. Flight 826 then diverted course and returned to Tokyo. Several of the injured passengers, and in some cases family members who were not passengers on the flight, brought suit to recover damages under the Warsaw Convention, a multilateral treaty governing the international carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo by air drafted in 1929 and adhered to by the United States in 1934.
The district court granted United's two motions to dismiss for forum non conveniens.2 The court held that Article 28(1) of the Warsaw Convention, which sets forth four forums in which an action must be brought and grants the plaintiff the option of choosing among these jurisdictions, did not act as a procedural bar to the court's entertainment of a motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens. Plaintiffs appealed. We have jurisdiction over these appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we reverse.
We review a district court's interpretation of treaties de novo. United States v. Idaho, 210 F.3d 1067, 1072(9th Cir.2000), aff'd, 533 U.S. 262, 121 S.Ct. 2135, 150 L.Ed.2d 326 (2001). Our interpretation of the Warsaw Convention begins with the text. El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tseng, 525 U.S. 155, 167, 119 S.Ct. 662, 142 L.Ed.2d 576 (1999). If the plain text is ambiguous, we look to other sources to elucidate the treaty's meaning, Chan v. Korean Air Lines, Ltd., 490 U.S. 122, 134, 109 S.Ct. 1676, 104 L.Ed.2d 113 (1989), including the purposes of the treaty, its drafting history, the postratification understanding of the contracting parties and the decisions of the courts of other signatories. See Tseng, 525 U.S. at 167-76, 119 S.Ct. 662. Throughout, "it is our responsibility to give the specific words of the treaty a meaning consistent with the shared expectations of the contracting parties." Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 399, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985). Here, although the text is ambiguous, the purposes, drafting history and treatment of the issue elsewhere compel us to conclude that forum non conveniens is not available in the Warsaw Convention actions giving rise to these appeals.
"Our inquiry begins with the text." Tseng, 525 U.S. at 167, 119 S.Ct. 662. The text of the Warsaw Convention is silent on the availability of the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Questions of jurisdiction and procedure, however, are governed by Article 28, which states:
(1) An action for damages must be brought, at the option of the plaintiff, in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, either before the court of the domicile of the carrier or of his principal place of business, or where he has a place of business through which the contract has been made, or before the court at the place of destination.
(2) Questions of procedure shall be governed by the law of the court to which the case is submitted.
Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air, Oct. 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000, 3020-21, T.S. No. 876 (1934), note following 49 U.S.C. § 40105.3
This text is susceptible to two equally plausible interpretations, as the following two decisions illustrate.4 In Milor v. British Airways, Plc., [1996] Q.B. 702, 706 (Eng.C.A.), the British Court of Appeal concluded that the text precluded the forum non conveniens doctrine, reasoning that the "[t]he procedural power to stay on the ground of forum non conveniens is ... inconsistent with the right conferred on the plaintiff to choose in which of the competent jurisdictions his action will be tried...."5 Under this view of the text, the scope of the forum state's procedural law incorporated by Article 28(2) is subject to Article 28(1), which grants to the plaintiff an absolute right of choice as between four presumptively convenient jurisdictions.
Also plausible, however, is the textual interpretation adopted in In re Air Crash Off Long Island New York, on July 17, 1996, 65 F.Supp.2d 207, 214 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), in which the court reasoned that the text of Article 28(2) plainly incorporates the forum state's procedural law. Because forum non conveniens is a feature of United States procedural law, see Am. Dredging Co. v. Miller, 510 U.S. 443, 453, 114 S.Ct. 981, 127 L.Ed.2d 285 (1994), "[f]orum non conveniens is a procedural tool available to U.S. courts and thus squarely falls within the literal language of Article 28(2)." In re Air Crash Off Long Island, 65 F.Supp.2d at 214; accord In re Air Crash Disaster Near New Orleans, Louisiana on July 9, 1982, 821 F.2d 1147, 1161 (5th Cir.1987) (en banc) (...
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