Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-98-07186/USCOURTS-caDC-98-07186-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 380
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Property Damage
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 9, 1999 Decided October 12, 1999

No. 98-7186

Maria V. Cruz, for herself and as representative of

Gustavo Cruz and Joaquin Rodriguez, minors, et al.,

Appellants

v.

American Airlines, Inc.,

Appellee

Consolidated with

98-7187

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 96cv02817)

(No. 97cv02883)

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Leonard N. Bebchick argued the cause and filed the briefs

for appellants.

Carroll E. Dubuc argued the cause for appellee. With him

on the brief was John E. Gagliano.

Before: Wald, Silberman, and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Silberman.

Silberman, Circuit Judge: Appellants seek reversal of a

decision of the district court limiting their recovery for lost

luggage to the amount set forth in the Warsaw Convention,

and dismissing their common law fraud and deceit claims.

We vacate in part the district court's entry of judgment

against appellants. We hold that American Airlines' failure

to comply with the baggage weight notice provisions of the

Convention precludes it from relying on the Convention's

liability limitations, but that appellants' common law claims

are preempted by the Warsaw Convention.

I.

On December 21, 1995, fourteen members of the Cruz

family arrived at National Airport, having purchased tickets

for travel on American Airlines from Washington through

Miami and on to their ultimate destination of Santo Domingo.

Prior to boarding, each family member checked two suitcases,

and was issued a baggage claim stub for each piece of

luggage. These claim stubs did not indicate the weight of the

suitcases.

The next day, after a delay in Miami, the Cruzes arrived in

Santo Domingo. Unfortunately, five of their suitcases did

not. Informed that plane weight restrictions had forced

American to leave behind some of the baggage originally

checked on their Miami-Santo Domingo flight, the Cruzes

were told that the five suitcases would be shipped to Santo

Domingo on a flight later that day. Upon their return to the

airport, however, the bags were still missing (why does this

sound so familiar?). The Cruzes promptly filed a missing

property report with American; they also profess to have

filled out, at American's request, more detailed "Declarations

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of Lost Property" indicating the contents and estimated value

of each lost suitcase. American claimed that it did not

receive any Declarations from the Cruzes for over 40 days

after the Cruzes lost their luggage, and denied the Cruz

family's lost-luggage claims on the ground that they did not

comply with American's requirement, stated in its contract of

carriage, that Declarations be filed within 30 days of the date

of the loss of baggage (the "30-Day Rule").

The Cruzes sued American asserting a federal cause of

action under the treaty popularly known as the Warsaw

Convention,1 which governs claims arising out of the international carriage of persons and property by air. They alleged

that they had submitted the required Declarations within the

30 days prescribed by the contract of carriage. In any event,

appellants argued, the 30-Day Rule itself had been unlawfully

applied to them. It was not mentioned in the tariffs American is required by law to file with the Department of Transportation for its Caribbean flights, see 49 U.S.C. s 41504

(1997), and it was also, according to appellants, contrary to

the express and exclusive lost-luggage provisions set forth in

the Warsaw Convention. See Warsaw Convention Art. 26(2).

Besides seeking the fair value of their lost luggage, the

Cruzes sought a declaratory judgment that American's application of the 30-Day Rule was unlawful, and an injunction

preventing American from applying the Rule to passengers

on its Caribbean flights in the future. The Cruz family also

invoked the district court's supplemental jurisdiction to assert

claims for damages against American for fraud and deceit

under Maryland law, alleging that American had a practice of

intentionally misapplying the 30-Day Rule against international passengers to discourage lost-luggage claims.

Conceding for the purposes of litigation that it had both

lost the Cruzes' luggage and improperly denied their lost

luggage claim, American moved to dismiss all of appellants'

claims in excess of the compensation provisions set forth in

__________

1 See Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating

to International Transportation By Air, Oct. 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000,

T.S. No. 876, note following 49 U.S.C. s 40105 (1997).

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Article 22(2) of the Warsaw Convention, which limits air

carrier liability to $9.07 per pound of luggage lost or damaged

in the course of air transportation. The Cruzes responded

that American's failure to state the weight of each suitcase on

the baggage stubs, as required by Article 4(3)(f) of the

Convention, precluded American from relying on the Convention's liability limitations. The district court ruled in favor of

American and limited appellants' recovery to $9.07 per pound,

using the default "deemed weight" set forth in American's

tariffs to calculate damages when the weight of a suitcase was

disputed or not known. See Cruz v. American Airlines, Inc.,

Civil Action No. 96-02817, Mem. Op. at 16-17 (D.D.C. Oct. 24,

1997). The court held that, as American's concessions resolved appellants' lost-luggage claims, the Cruzes no longer

had standing to challenge American's alleged misapplication

of the 30-Day Rule, see id. at 25-26, and that appellants'

common law claims were preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act, 49 U.S.C. s 41713(b)(1) (1997). See id. at 35. After

filing a motion for reconsideration and pursuing other procedural avenues in the district court--including filing a separate

class action raising similar substantive claims2--the Cruzes

appealed.

__________

2 This appeal actually consolidates two cases. Both cases--a

civil suit filed by five members of the Cruz family and a class action

subsequently filed by the same named plaintiffs--arise out of the

same set of facts and raise essentially identical substantive issues.

Appellants had moved to amend their complaint as a class action

and that motion was pending when American moved for summary

judgment; because it ruled in favor of American at summary

judgment, the district court dismissed appellants' motion to amend

as moot. The Cruzes filed a separate class action (identical to their

motion to amend that was deemed moot by the district court), the

ultimate dismissal of which was largely predicated upon the district

court's substantive rulings in the original suit. Since we vacate the

district court's summary judgment order in the original suit, appellants' complaint is restored to its prior status, with their motion to

amend their complaint as a class action still pending before the

district court. Accordingly, we need not address appellants' procedural objections to the district court's disposition of the two cases

after it ruled against the Cruzes at summary judgment.

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II.

As noted, the Cruzes seek relief under the Warsaw Convention, which governs claims arising from international air

transportation. The primary issue in this case is simply

whether American's liability for losing the Cruzes' baggage is

limited by Article 22(b) of the Treaty to $9.07 a pound.

Appellants argue no; American did not comply with that

Article because the Treaty's liability limitation is conditioned

on a carrier's compliance with Article 4(4) which states that:

if the carrier accepts baggage without a baggage check

having been delivered, or if the baggage check does not

contain the particulars set out at [Article 4(3)](d), (f) and

(h) above, the carrier shall not be entitled to avail himself

of those provisions of the Convention which exclude or

limit his liability. (Emphasis added.)

Article 4(3)(f) requires carriers to include the "number and

weight of the packages" on its luggage tickets. It is undisputed that American did not do so. Appellants therefore

contend that American has lost its Warsaw Convention damage limitation and that they are entitled to recover the full

value of the luggage.

The district court accepted American's argument that Article 4(4) does not oblige a carrier to comply with all the

"particulars" of (d), (f), and (h) of that Article; a carrier loses

its liability limitation protection only if it complies with none

of the particulars. While acknowledging that "no other

courts" shared in its reading of Article 4(4), Mem. Op. at 11,

the district court reasoned as follows:

Article 4(4) directs that "if the baggage check does not

contain the particulars set out at (d), (f) and (h) above,

the carrier shall not be entitled to avail himself of those

provisions of the convention which exclude or limit his

liability." The Court notes that the provision employs

the conjunction "and" rather than "or." In the ordinary

case, the word "and" should retain its conjunctive meaning.... Considering the conjunctive meaning of the

word "and," the plain language of this provision directs

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that liability is lifted only if all three "particulars" are

missing.

Id. at 10-11 (emphasis in district court's opinion) (citations

omitted). As the disputed luggage tickets contained two of

the three "particulars," the district court concluded that

American's failure to record the weight of each suitcase did

not preclude the carrier's recourse to the Convention's liability limits. Id. at 11.

We do not agree. Although we recognize that the district

court's interpretation is linguistically possible, we do not think

it is a reasonable construction. It is rather clear to us that

the word "and" means that Article 4(4) of the Convention

obliges a carrier to comply with each of the three particulars.

American claims that appellants were hardly prejudiced by

its failure to weigh the pieces of baggage and record the

specific weights on the baggage tags because its practice was

to weigh (and charge extra) only for bags that exceed 100

pounds.3 All bags on which no extra charge is imposed are

deemed to weigh 100 pounds. That is simply another way of

arguing that Article 4(3)(f)'s requirement makes little real

sense. There is no apparent purpose in the requirement that

the carrier actually weigh each bag and record the weight on

the ticket, so long as a carrier's deemed-weight rules favor its

passengers. Still the language of the Convention is unyielding and we have no warrant to dispense with portions we

might think purposeless. As the Supreme Court has noted in

its interpretations of the Warsaw Convention, "where the text

is clear, we have no power to insert an amendment." Chan v.

Korean Air Lines, Ltd., 490 U.S. 122, 134 (1989).

We therefore reject the reasoning employed in Martin v.

Pan American World Airways, Inc., 563 F. Supp. 135

(D.D.C. 1983), relied upon by American and discussed at

__________

3 The amount of American's default "deemed weight" was

initially disputed in the district court, with American claiming that

the deemed weight was 70 pounds and the Cruzes alleging that it

was 100. At least for the purposes of the Cruzes' suit, American

has conceded that it has a 100-pound deemed-weight rule.

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length by the district court. Mem. Op. at 8, 12-15. In that

case, as well as ours, a default "deemed weight" was established in the airline's tariffs to "provide[ ] an alternative

means of fixing the amount of liability," and the Martins (like

the Cruzes) were made aware of the liability limitations of the

Convention and the availability of additional insurance. Id. at

140; Mem. Op. at 15. The Martin court, explicitly eschewing

what it believed to be the "literal reading" of Article 4(4) and

looking instead to the Warsaw Convention's "primary purpose" of limiting air carrier liability, held that an "airline's

failure to record the weight of [a passenger's] luggage is a

technical and insubstantial omission ... which should not act

to extend the airline's liability." Martin, 563 F. Supp. at 139,

141. But calling the requirement technical does not reduce

its obligatory force--if a carrier wishes to assert the Convention's liability limitations.

American, trying another tack, argues that the need for

"uniformity" in construing treaties authorizes us to ignore the

requirements of Article 4(4). To be sure, several courts have

done so, see, e.g., Republic Nat'l Bank of New York v.

Eastern Airlines, Inc., 815 F.2d 232, 238 (2d Cir. 1987);

Abbaa v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 673 F. Supp. 991,

992-94 (D. Minn. 1987), although since others have not, see,

e.g., Spanner v. United Airlines, Inc., 177 F.3d 1173, 1175-76

(9th Cir. 1999); Tchokponhove v. Air Afrique, 953 F. Supp. 79

(S.D.N.Y. 1996); Da Rosa v. TAP Air Portugal, 796 F. Supp.

1508, 1509-10 (S.D. Fla. 1992); Gill v. Lufthansa German

Airlines, 620 F. Supp. 1453, 1456 (E.D.N.Y. 1985); Maghsoudi v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 470 F. Supp. 1275, 1278-

80 (D. Haw. 1979), it could of course just as easily be argued

that uniformity would be served by accepting the Cruzes'

position. But even had all federal courts that had considered

the issue decided that they had the authority to ignore the

Treaty's language, we would not have joined them. If there

are circuit conflicts, it is for the Supreme Court to supply

uniformity. Nor are we the least bit impressed by American's claim that the subsequent amendment to the Convention

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by Montreal Protocol No. 4,4 which entered into force on

March 3, 1999, and which eliminated the baggage-weight

requirement implicated in this case, should be read as "clarifying" the Convention's prior language. Montreal Protocol

4's luggage ticket provisions clearly amend prior law; as such

they cannot possibly be given retroactive effect by being

labeled a "clarification."

We therefore hold that the district court's interpretation of

Article 4(4) was in error, and that American's failure to

satisfy the Convention's baggage weight notice provisions

precludes it from recourse to the $9.07 per pound limit

provided in Article 22(2). Assuming American continues to

concede liability on remand, appellants will be entitled to

recover for the actual value of their lost luggage.

III.

The Cruzes also appeal the district court's dismissal of

their fraud and deceit claims under Maryland common law.

The district court threw out those claims on the ground that

they were preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act, 49

U.S.C. s 41713(b)(1). However, American raises an alternative argument--that the Warsaw Convention itself provides

the exclusive cause of action for injury arising out of a loss of

luggage during international travel. We agree with American's alternative argument, so we need not grapple with what

we regard as the more difficult issue of Airline Deregulation

Act preemption.

The Warsaw Convention's preemptive impact is much more

apparent after the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year

in El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tseng, 119 S. Ct. 662 (1999).

Prior to that opinion, there was considerable dispute in the

federal courts as to whether the Warsaw Convention--which

until 20 years ago was not even understood to create a cause

__________

4 Montreal Protocol No. 4 to Amend the Convention for the

Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage By

Air, signed at Warsaw on October 12, 1929, as amended by the

Protocol Done at the Hague on September 8, 1955, reprinted in

S. Rep. No. 105-20, pp.21-32 (1998).

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of action, see In re Korean Air Lines Disaster, 932 F.2d 1475,

1491-92 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (Mikva, J., dissenting)--had a

preemptive impact on state law. At one point we declined to

take sides on the issue, see id. at 1488, but the Supreme

Court has mooted our decorous position.

In Tseng, a passenger brought a claim under New York

tort law after being subjected to an intrusive preboarding

security search, alleging that the search caused her emotional

and psychological injuries. See Tseng, 119 S. Ct. at 667. The

Court held that the passenger's claim was preempted, and

that recovery for a personal injury sustained in the course of

international air travel, "if not allowed under the Convention,

is not available at all." Id. at 668. The Court relied on

Article 24 which provides that, "[i]n cases covered by" Article

17 (the Convention provision governing airline liability for

personal injury claims), Article 18 (provision for lost or

damaged luggage), and Article 19 (provision for damages

caused by delay of passengers or luggage), "any action for

damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to

the conditions and limits set out in this Convention."5 The

Court explained that Article 24 precludes "a passenger from

asserting any air transit personal injury claims under local

law, including claims that failed to satisfy Article 17's liability

conditions," id. at 671 (emphasis added). It is clear, then,

that the Convention also provides the exclusive cause of

action in cases "covered by" Article 18.

There is still the question whether Article 18 "covers"

appellants' fraud and deceit claims against American. Article

__________

5 As alluded to above, Article 24 has also recently been modified by Montreal Protocol No. 4, and now states in relevant part

that, "[i]n the carriage of passengers and baggage, any action for

damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the

conditions and limits set out in this Convention." The Supreme

Court has indicated that this modification "merely clarifies, it does

not alter, the Convention's rule of exclusivity." Tseng, 119 S. Ct. at

674. While for the purposes of our analysis we examine the "[i]n

cases covered ... by Article 18" language contained in Article 24 at

the time of appellants' claim, we see no reason that the modifications to Article 24 would require a different conclusion.

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18 of the Convention establishes air carrier liability for damage "sustained in the event of the destruction or loss of ...

any checked baggage or any goods, if the occurrence which

caused the damage so sustained took place during the transportation by air." Appellants contend that the "occurrence

which caused the damage" they sustained was not the loss of

their luggage, but American's fraudulent denial of their lostluggage claim. In other words, the Cruzes argue that the

existence of an intervening event--the intentional misapplication of the 30-Day Rule to their claims--subsequent to the

loss of their luggage brings their common law claims outside

of the Warsaw Convention's area of applicability entirely.

See Tseng, 119 S. Ct. at 673 ("The Convention's preemptive

effect on local law extends no further than the Convention's

own substantive scope.").

Here again, Tseng is instructive. Article 17, which the

Court held preempted Tseng's state law claims, establishes

air carrier liability for "damage sustained in the event of the

death or wounding of a passenger or any other bodily injury

suffered 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." Tseng did not suffer a "bodily injury" under Article 17;

nor was the event that gave rise to Tseng's claim an "accident" as that term has been construed by prior cases. See id.

at 667. Nonetheless, the Court held Tseng's claims to fall

within the "substantive scope" of Article 17, and thus were

preempted. See id. at 667-68. By analogy we think that the

"substantive scope" of Article 18 must extend at least as far

as to encompass the Cruzes' common law claims. The relationship between the occurrence that the Cruzes claim

"caused" their injuries (the misapplication of the 30-Day

Rule) is so closely related to the loss of the luggage itself as

to be, in a sense, indistinguishable from it. If American had

simply asserted no reason for denying the Cruzes' lostluggage claim, and just refused to pay, it is clear that the

Cruzes' only remedy would be to sue under the Convention;

they would not be able to fashion an additional state cause of

action for malice or stubbornness. It follows, we think, that a

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bad reason for refusing to pay--whether based on an unenforceable rule or not--does not alter the legal situation.

To be sure, if American's agent had hit Cruz with a

baseball bat when rejecting Cruz's claim we would not think

Cruz's tort claim would be preempted by the Warsaw Convention. Perhaps even a slanderous statement uttered by an

American employee in a heated argument over lost luggage

would be actionable. But were we to permit the Cruzes'

"fraud and deceit" claims to proceed we would tear an obvious

hole in the Convention's exclusivity for creative lawyers to

exploit--a construction of the Convention that the Supreme

Court has made clear is to be disfavored. See id. at 672.

We are left with appellants' claims for declaratory and

injunctive relief, which also are based on American's alleged

misapplication of the 30-Day Rule. The district court dismissed these claims on jurisdictional grounds; because American conceded that it had misapplied the 30-Day Rule, and

there was little risk of American once again misplacing the

Cruzes' luggage, appellants lacked standing to assert a challenge to the Rule. Mem. Op. at 23-26. It also is quite

possible that appellants' claims for declaratory and injunctive

relief are moot, as American professes to have corrected its

erroneous application of the 30-Day Rule to its Caribbean

flights. Still, in the event that our remand of the district

court's grant of summary judgment breathes life into the

Cruzes' claims for declaratory and injunctive relief, we briefly

address American's argument that these claims are also

preempted by the Warsaw Convention.

American attempts to frame this issue in its favor by

depicting the Cruzes' claims for declaratory and injunctive

relief as based on state law. However--while we agree that

appellants' complaint is hardly a model of precise pleading--

these claims appear to be founded not on local law but on the

Warsaw Convention itself; appellants allege that American's

application of the 30-Day Rule was in violation of the Convention's express lost-luggage claim notice provisions. See Warsaw Convention Art. 26(2). Furthermore, even if appellants'

claims were made under state law, the Convention preempts

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only "any action for damages, however founded." Warsaw

Convention Art. 24. Accordingly, we conclude that this claim,

unlike the Cruzes' common law claims, is not preempted by

the Warsaw Convention.

* * * *

We vacate the district court's entry of judgment against

appellants in the Cruz family's original suit (No. 98-7186),

and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion. As

our order reinstates the Cruzes' complaint to its status at the

time of the district court's grant of American's motion for

summary judgment, appellants' motion to amend their complaint as a class action remains pending before the district

court.6 We also vacate the district court's dismissal of appellants' class action (No. 98-7187), but note that this claim is

essentially duplicative of appellants' pending motion to

amend, and that consolidation of these two cases by the

district court would appear appropriate.

So ordered.

__________

6 The Cruzes argue that the district court's denial of their

motion to amend its complaint as a class action prejudiced unnamed

class claimants whose claims expired under the Warsaw Convention

statute of limitations during the six-month period between the filing

of the motion to amend and appellants' subsequent filing of a class

action. However, because appellants' motion to amend remains

before the court, the statute of limitations has tolled from the date

of filing with respect to the prospective class. See American Pipe

& Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538, 551-52 (1974).

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