Vogelsang v. Delta Air Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 30 April 1962
• Docket Number: No. 310,Docket 27108.,310
• Parties: Joseph VOGELSANG and George Schmits, co-partners doing business under the firm name and style of White-house Bros., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

302 F.2d 709 (1962)

Joseph VOGELSANG and George Schmits, co-partners doing business under the firm name and style of White-house Bros., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 310, Docket 27108.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued April 4, 1962.

Decided April 30, 1962.

Simon Greenhill, New York City (Greenhill & Speyer, John M. Speyer, New York City, of counsel) for plaintiffs-appellants.

John L. Conners, New York City (Bigham, Englar, Jones & Houston, John M. Aherne, New York City, of counsel), for defendant-appellee.

Before CLARK, HINCKS and FRIENDLY, Circuit Judges.

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs appeal from a judgment of Judge Sugarman in the Southern District of New York, 193 F.Supp. 613, which granted a motion of defendant, Delta Air Lines, Inc., for summary judgment limiting to $100 its liability for loss of a bag owned by plaintiffs and checked in connection with the air transportation of one of them.¹ We affirm.

The facts, contained in affidavits, Delta's answer to interrogatories, and depositions, are as follows:

Plaintiffs are partners, engaged in the sale of loose diamonds and the manufacture of platinum, gold and diamond jewelry for sale to retailers. In the fall of 1957, plaintiff Schmits made a flight from the firm's headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Jacksonville, Florida, on a Delta plane whose final destination was Miami. His transportation was under a coupon forming part of a round trip interstate ticket previously purchased. He checked two bags. The airline affixed a numbered "strap check" to each bag and gave Schmits "claim stubs," bearing the same numbers, which formed the lower part of the tags. One of the pieces of luggage was a small leather bag containing personal articles; the other was a fibre bag encased in a canvas cover and allegedly containing assorted jewelry worth $69,275.87, intended for display to customers of Schmits' firm.

At the time of Schmits' journey, Delta was a participant in Local and Joint Passenger Rules Tariff No. PR-4 governing the transportation of passengers and baggage between points within the United States,² filed with the Civil Aeronautics Board. Rule 71 of the tariff provided, insofar as pertinent, as follows:

"Rule 71 — Limitation of Liability

"(A) The liability, if any, of all participating carriers for the loss of, damage to, or delay in the delivery of any personal property, including baggage (whether or not such property has been checked or otherwise delivered into the custody of the carrier) shall be limited to an amount equal to the value of such property, which shall not exceed the following amounts for each ticket:

* * * * * *

$100.00 when any other carrier including Delta is responsible for the loss, damage or delay * * *;

* * * * * *

unless the passenger, at the time of presenting such property for transportation, when checking in for flight, has declared a higher value and paid an additional transportation charge, at the rate of 10 cents for each $100.00 or fraction thereof, by which such higher declared value exceeds the applicable amount set forth above, in which event carrier\'s liability shall not exceed such higher declared value."³

The ticket issued to Schmits contained, under the heading "Conditions of Contract," a provision under (4) that:

"(d) liability of Carrier in respect of baggage and other personal property is limited to its declared value which shall not exceed $100 (U. S. currency) or its equivalent per passenger, unless a higher valuation is declared in advance and additional charges are paid pursuant to Carrier\'s tariffs;"

and another provision

"(5.) Baggage carried hereunder will be delivered to the bearer hereof upon return to Carrier of the baggage (claim) tag(s)."

Schmits did not avail himself of the option to declare a higher value than $100 and pay the corresponding charges, which, for the value now claimed, would have considerably exceeded his fare for this leg of the trip.

On arriving at Jacksonville, Schmits went to a self-claim baggage area in the terminal. When the truck with luggage from his flight arrived, Schmits saw, and received, the leather bag containing personal effects; the canvas-covered bag with the jewelry was not on the truck and has never been located. Investigation revealed that as the plane was being unloaded on the ramp, a man holding a claim check approached the porter who was receiving baggage from the bin in the belly of the plane, and asked for his bag; the porter declined to search for it. The man then made a similar request of another employee, who, having finished his task of unloading the mail bin in the tail of the plane, had joined the porter in receiving baggage. The man gave this employee a claim tag; the latter handed the tag to the porter; the man took a bag, presumably Schmits', and departed; no one ever looked at the proffered claim tag. Although Delta's internal rules required surrender of the claim tag and prohibited ramp delivery, both requirements were occasionally breached when passengers sought quick delivery of baggage to assist in making connections.

Section 403(a) of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, 49 U.S.C.A. § 483 (a), then in effect now § 403(a) of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, 49 U.S. C.A. § 1373(a), obliged Delta to file with the Civil Aeronautics Board "tariffs showing all rates, fares, and charges for air transportation between points served by it * * * and showing to the extent required by regulations of the Board, all classifications, rules, regulations, practices, and services in connection with such air transportation." The Board required, 14 C.F.R. § 221.38(a), that "the rules and regulations of each tariff shall contain" inter alia:

"(4) All other provisions and charges which in any way increase or decrease the amount to be paid on any shipment or by any passenger or by any charterer or which in any way increase or decrease the value of the services rendered to the shipment or passenger or charterer."⁴

A provision limiting liability for baggage unless a higher valuation is declared and higher charges paid is within this requirement. Cf. Herman v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 222 F.2d 326 (2 Cir.), cert. denied 350 U.S. 843, 76 S.Ct. 84, 100 L.Ed. 751 (1955).

A long line of decisions, too familiar to warrant complete citation, has settled that limitations of liability in railroad tariffs required to be filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission are binding on shippers and passengers, whether the limitation was also embodied in the transportation documents, as in Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U.S. 491, 33 S.Ct. 148, 57 L.Ed. 314 (1913), or was not, as in Boston & Maine R. R. v. Hooker, 233 U.S. 97, 34 S.Ct. 526, 58 L.Ed. 868 (1914). In Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Esteve Brothers & Co., 256 U.S. 566, 41 S.Ct. 584, 65 L.Ed. 1094 (1921), the principle was extended to tariff provisions of a telegraph company filed with the Commission, although not then required to be. Inevitably, therefore, the same rule has been applied to tariffs of air carriers filed with the Civil Aeronautics Board under 49 U.S.C.A. § 483(a), Lichten v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 189 F.2d 939 (2 Cir., 1951); Herman v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., supra.

Plaintiffs contend that what happened here did not constitute "the loss of, damage to, or delay in the delivery of any personal property" within Rule 71 (A). They say the bag was not lost, damaged, or delayed, but misdelivered. We would not read "loss" so narrowly. For all practical purposes a bag is just as much "lost" to the owner when it is delivered to someone else who does not return it, as when it has been misplaced or pilfered. The purpose of Rule 71(A) was to protect the airline directly, and other users of its service indirectly, from large baggage claims of the sort here presented unless the carrier was advised of the need for taking special precautions and adequately paid for their cost and the enlarged responsibility assumed. This forbids a construction, not called for by the words, that would eliminate so common a cause of "loss" as a misdelivery; a true "conversion" by the carrier itself, see Glickfeld v. Howard Van Lines, Inc., 213 F.2d 723, 727 (9 Cir., 1954), would be another matter. The Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C.A. §...