Krys v. Lufthansa German Airlines

• Decision Date: 25 August 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-4430,96-4430
• Citation: 119 F.3d 1515
• Parties: 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 387 Leonard KRYS, Rebeca Krys, his wife, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LUFTHANSA GERMAN AIRLINES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1515

119 F.3d 1515

11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 387

Leonard KRYS, Rebeca Krys, his wife, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LUFTHANSA GERMAN AIRLINES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 96-4430.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 25, 1997.

John N. Romans, New York City, for Defendant-Appellant.

Tod Aronovitz, Aronowitz & Associates, Miami, Florida, Joel S. Perwin, Podhurst, Orseck, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow, Olin & Perwin, P.A., Miami, Florida, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before ANDERSON and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and ROSENN ^*, Senior Circuit Judge.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

Following a three-day bench trial, a magistrate judge rendered a $2.4 million negligence judgment against defendant Lufthansa German Airlines ("Lufthansa") in favor of plaintiffs Leonard and Rebeca Krys. On appeal, Lufthansa raises challenges to both the factual findings and legal conclusions of the court below. Before turning to these challenges, we set out briefly the facts and procedural history of the case.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY ¹

On November 30, 1991, Leonard Krys ("Krys"), a 47-year-old travel agent, was a passenger on Lufthansa Flight 463, traveling from Miami to Frankfurt, Germany. Sometime in the early hours of the flight, Krys began to feel ill and contacted a flight attendant. The attendant requested that any doctors on board the plane identify themselves to the crew, and three passengers responded. After those passengers agreed that Dr. Samuel Fischmann was best suited to handle the situation, Dr. Fischmann began to tend to Mr. Krys. Precisely what symptoms either were evident to Dr. Fischmann or were conveyed to Dr. Fischmann by Krys is a matter of some dispute. Dr. Fischmann concluded after his initial examination of the patient that "there was nothing to worry about"; ² only when the flight was over Amsterdam did Dr. Fischmann become convinced that Krys might be having a heart attack. However, the magistrate judge found that Mr. Krys "suffered the symptoms of a cardiac infarction, as described by the American Medical Association and Lufthansa's Manual, ... within the first one and one-half to three hours of the ten hour flight...." Although the plane's flight path kept it close to the east coast throughout the first one to three hours of the flight, the crew--ostensibly relying on Dr. Fischmann's opinion--did not make an unscheduled landing. Upon landing in Germany, the plane was met by an ambulance which transported Krys to a hospital. At the hospital, the doctors concluded that Krys had indeed suffered a heart attack.

Krys and his wife filed the instant action in the Southern District of Florida. Invoking the court's diversity jurisdiction, the plaintiffs set forth causes of action for negligence and loss of consortium. The plaintiffs' causes of action turned not on an allegation that any act or omission of Lufthansa caused Mr. Krys's heart attack, but instead on an allegation that Lufthansa's crew acted negligently in responding to the symptoms displayed by Mr. Krys and thus aggravated the damage to his heart. The defendants, in turn, moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiffs' state law causes of action were preempted either by the Warsaw Convention or, alternatively, by the Federal Aviation Act. The district judge denied the motion, and the case was tried to a magistrate judge with the consent of the parties. After the district court rejected Lufthansa's preemption arguments, the case proceeded as a common-law negligence case. ³ The magistrate judge concluded that Lufthansa was indeed negligent and rendered a judgment for Leonard Krys in the amount of $1.8 million and for Rebeca Krys in the amount of $600,000. ⁴

On appeal, Lufthansa presents the following challenges to the judgment below: (1) the plaintiffs' state law claims are preempted by the Warsaw Convention because the events that transpired constitute an "accident"; (2) the judge erred in finding that Krys displayed the symptoms of a heart attack in the first one and one-half to three hours of the flight; (3) the judge erred in finding that Lufthansa was negligent; (4) the judge erred in finding that Krys suffered damage to his heart wall as a result of Lufthansa's negligence; and (5) the damages awarded were excessive. ⁵ We address each argument in turn.

II. APPLICABILITY OF THE WARSAW CONVENTION

First, we address appellant's argument regarding the applicability of the Warsaw Convention. ⁶ Under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, an international treaty binding on the United States, air carriers are liable for injuries sustained by a passenger on an international flight "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." 49 Stat. 3018 (providing the official English translation of the governing French text). As the Supreme Court recognized in Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 396, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 1341, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985), "[an airline] is liable to a passenger under the terms of the Warsaw Convention only if the passenger proves that an 'accident' was the cause of her injury." In the instant case, appellant Lufthansa argues that the events that transpired on the flight in question constitute an "accident" under the terms of the Convention, and therefore, that the Warsaw Convention--including its liability limits ⁷--applies and preempts the plaintiffs' state-law negligence claims. ⁸

Our determination of whether an "accident" occurred is guided by the Supreme Court's decision in Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985). In Air France, the Court resolved a split in the courts of appeals regarding the proper definition of the term "accident" as used in the Warsaw Convention. After examining the text of the Convention, its negotiating and subsequent history, and the weight of precedent in the Convention's signatory countries, the Court rejected the argument that "accident" means "an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked." Id. at 396, 105 S.Ct. at 1340. Instead, the Court held that an "accident" is properly defined as "an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger." Id. at 405, 105 S.Ct. at 1345. The Court then applied this definition to the case before it, which presented the question whether a loss of hearing caused by normal operation of the aircraft's pressurization system constitutes an "accident" within the meaning of Article 17. The Court answered this question in the negative, saying that "when the injury indisputably results from the passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operation of the aircraft, it has not been caused by an accident." Id. at 406, 105 S.Ct. at 1345.

Lufthansa urges us to hold that a negligent response to a passenger's heart-attack symptoms constitutes an "accident" under the terms of Air France. In its view, aggravation of a preexisting condition due to crew negligence is ipso facto an injury caused by an "unexpected or unusual event ... external to the passenger." This argument has some intuitive appeal: the response of the crew to the passenger's situation is external to the passenger, and deviation from the normal standard of care is at least arguably "unexpected" or "unusual." As further support for their argument that the conduct alleged in the instant case constitutes an "accident," Lufthansa cites the pre-Air France case of Seguritan v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 86 A.D.2d 658, 446 N.Y.S.2d 397 (N.Y.App.Div.1982), aff'd, 57 N.Y.2d 767, 454 N.Y.S.2d 991, 440 N.E.2d 1339 (1982) (mem.). In Seguritan, the court answered the question we are presented with today as follows:

The incident in question is clearly an "accident" within the meaning of article 17. The "accident" is not the heart attack suffered by the decedent. Rather, it is the alleged aggravation of decedent's condition by the negligent failure of defendant's employees to render her medical assistance. This is somewhat analogous to the hijacking cases where the "accident" which caused the injury is not the act of the hijackers but the alleged failure of the carrier to provide adequate security....

Thus, this case falls squarely within the terms and conditions of the Convention.

446 N.Y.S.2d at 398-99.

Plaintiffs, on the other hand, urge us to hold that there was no "accident" within the terms of the Warsaw Convention. In the plaintiffs' view, the instant case falls within the category of cases the Supreme Court described in Air France as not involving an "accident": cases in which "the injury indisputably results from the passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operation of the aircraft." Air France, 470 U.S. at 406, 105 S.Ct. at 1345. Relying on numerous cases holding that aggravation of pre-existing injuries due to inadequate care does not constitute an "accident" within the meaning of the Convention, the plaintiff argues that "the dispositive focus [of the accident inquiry] ... is upon the event or the chain of events which caused the initial injury"--in this case, the heart attack. Because there has never been an allegation that the heart attack itself was caused by an "unexpected or unusual event external to the passenger," the plaintiff argues that there can be no "accident" involved in this case.

We turn, then, to the case law in plaintiffs' favor. In Scherer v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 54 A.D.2d 636, 387 N.Y.S.2d 580 (N.Y.App.Div.1976), the plaintiff brought an action under the Warsaw Convention, alleging that sitting in an airline seat on one flight had caused him thrombophlebitis and sitting in an airline seat on another flight had aggravated that...