Manion v. Pan American World Airways, Inc.

• Decision Date: 06 April 1982
• Citation: 449 N.Y.S.2d 693,55 N.Y.2d 398,434 N.E.2d 1060
• Parties: , 434 N.E.2d 1060 Francis V. MANION et al., Plaintiffs, and Robyn G. Haggard et al., Appellants, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, INC., Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 693

449 N.Y.S.2d 693

55 N.Y.2d 398, 434 N.E.2d 1060

Francis V. MANION et al., Plaintiffs and Robyn G. Haggard et al., Appellants, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, INC., Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 6, 1982.

Rudolph V. Pino, Jr., Charles F. Krause, Frank H. Granito, Jr. and Lawrence B. Goldhirsch, New York City, for appellants.

William J. Junkerman, Randal R. Craft, Jr., John M. Toriello and Reynold H. Lewke, New York City, for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

COOKE, Chief Judge.

This case involves the limitations of carriers' liability to international air passengers under the Warsaw Convention, and the conditions that an airline must meet to be protected by those limitations. The court holds that, if the defendant airline failed to deliver a ticket to plaintiff when the airline accepted her as a passenger at the outset of her trip, the airline may not invoke the liability ceilings of the Convention. The order of the Appellate Division, 80 A.D.2d 303, 439 N.Y.S.2d 6, therefore should be reversed.

Robyn Haggard, then 16 years old, was a passenger on a Pan American World Airways airplane that was attacked by terrorists at Fiumicino International Airport in Rome on December 17, 1973. She suffered second and third degree burns over 30% of her body in the firebomb attack, which killed or seriously injured many of the other passengers. Robyn, with other members of a charter group, was on the second stage of a journey from New York City to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The airplane had been awaiting departure for Beirut, Lebanon.

Robyn sued Pan Am for her injuries, and the airline asserted the $75,000 liability limitation of the Warsaw Convention. In the first part of a bifurcated nonjury trial, Supreme Court, 105 Misc.2d 927, 430 N.Y.S.2d 486, found that Pan Am did not deliver a ticket to Robyn until she reached Rome. The court held that Pan Am's failure to deliver a ticket to Robyn when she embarked at Kennedy Airport in New York City rendered inapplicable the $75,000 limitation. It dismissed the airline's affirmative defenses based upon the Convention and permitted amendment of plaintiff's ad damnum clause from $75,000 to $1 million.

The Appellate Division modified, on the law, by reinstating Pan Am's affirmative defenses and limiting the ad damnum clause to $75,000. The Appellate Division did not address the trial court's finding that no ticket was delivered in New York, but held as a matter of law that even if no ticket was given to plaintiff in New York, delivery of the ticket in Rome sufficed to give Pan Am protection under the Warsaw Convention's liability limitations.

Under the Warsaw Convention of 1929 (49 U.S.Stat. 3000 et seq.), as modified by the Montreal Agreement of 1966 (31 Fed.Reg. 7302), participating airlines are absolutely liable to passengers for injuries suffered during air travel, up to a maximum of $75,000 per person (see Evangelinos v. Trans World Airlines, 550 F.2d 152, 154). Subdivision 2 of article 3 of the Convention, however, states explicitly that "if the carrier accepts a passenger without a passenger ticket having been delivered he shall not be entitled to avail himself of those provisions of this convention which exclude or limit his liability." The defendant argues, and the Appellate Division agreed, that any failure to deliver the ticket to Robyn at Kennedy Airport was cured by her receipt of a ticket in Rome. This court cannot agree.

The requirement that the carrier deliver the ticket for it to avail itself of the Convention's limitations is based on the contractual nature of the passenger-carrier relationship. "The contract plays a role fundamental to the objectives of the Warsaw Conference. The obligations arising from the contract between the carrier and the passenger carry out the Conference goal that the rules of limited liability be known to both parties" (Block v. Compagnie Nationale Air France, 386 F.2d 323, 333-334, cert. den. 392 U.S. 905, 88 S.Ct. 2053, 20 L.Ed.2d 1363).

Pan Am maintains that delivery of the ticket in Rome was sufficient to permit the airline to assert the Convention's limitations on liability. Such a contention, however, does not comport with the language of subdivision 2 of article 3 or with judicial interpretation of that subdivision. The subdivision states that the liability limitations shall not apply "if the carrier accepts a passenger without a passenger ticket having been delivered" (emphasis added). We hold that delivery of the ticket, to invoke the liability limitations of the Convention, must have been made by the carrier prior to the initiation of the first leg of the trip.

This court reached a similar conclusion in Egan v. American Airlines, 21 N.Y.2d 160, 287 N.Y.S.2d 14, 234 N.E.2d 199, cert. den. 390 U.S. 1039, 88 S.Ct. 1636, 20 L.Ed.2d 301). There, a passenger purchased from Northwest Airlines a ticket for a round trip from New York City to Vancouver, British Columbia, with stopovers in Seattle and Chicago. On her return, she took a bus from Vancouver to Seattle rather than her scheduled flight, then took her Northwest flight from Seattle to Chicago. When she arrived too late in Chicago to catch her scheduled flight to New York, Northwest booked her onto an American Airlines flight. The American plane crashed, killing the passenger. Her administrators argued that the Warsaw Convention's liability limitations did not apply because the American flight did not constitute "international travel." In concluding that the Convention did apply, the court emphasized that the bus trip had not altered the fact that the Seattle to Chicago and Chicago to New York return flights were nonetheless "performed under the original contract" for round trip travel from New York to Vancouver and back and therefore constituted "international transportation" (id., at p. 167, 287 N.Y.S.2d 14, 234 N.E.2d 199). ¹

Likewise, in this case the trip to Saudi Arabia and return was contracted for as a whole. As Supreme Court found, one ticket was purchased, containing coupons for each leg of the journey. ² Although at each stop plaintiff might have been subject to check-in and...