Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-04191/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-04191-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 310
Nature of Suit: Airplane Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Airline Crash

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

NOT FOR CITATION

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SLOBODANKA BLAZEVSKA, 

surviving and personal representative

of the ESTATE OF RISTO

BLAZEVSKI, deceased; et al.,

Plaintiffs, No. C 05-4191 PJH

v. ORDER GRANTING

DEFENDANT’S MOTION 

FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT COMPANY,

a Kansas Corporation,

Defendant.

_______________________________/

Defendant’s motion for summary judgment came on for hearing on April 5, 2006,

before this court. Having read the parties’ papers and carefully considered their arguments

and the relevant legal authorities, and good cause appearing, the court GRANTS

defendant’s motion.

BACKGROUND

This is a case brought pursuant to this court’s diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §

1332. Plaintiffs are the families of eight Macedonian residents who were killed in a plane

crash in Bosnia on February 26, 2004. The aircraft crashed in a mountainous area near

Mostar, Bosnia. One of the decedents was Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski. The

aircraft was en route from Skopje, Macedonia to an investment conference in Bosnia. 

Plaintiffs assert three claims under Macedonian law related to defendant’s design and/or

manufacture of the aircraft, including a claim that defendant failed to design the aircraft to

be sufficiently crashworthy. 

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The aircraft, a Beechcraft Super King Air 300 (“aircraft”), was manufactured by

Beech Aircraft Corporation, now Raytheon Aircraft Company (“Raytheon”), a Kansas

corporation. The aircraft was delivered following its manufacture in April 1980 to the

Republic of Macedonia (“Macedonia”). There is some dispute regarding whether

Macedonia was the initial purchaser of the aircraft. Raytheon asserts that the first

purchaser was Wolfgang Denzel in Augsburg, Germany. Plaintiffs contend on the other

hand that Denzel was merely a Beech sales agent who took possession of the aircraft prior

to its delivery to Macedonia. It is, however, undisputed that Raytheon never maintained,

operated, modified, repaired, or had possession of the aircraft after its 1980 delivery

overseas.

DISCUSSION

Raytheon moves for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiffs’ action is barred by

the General Aviation Revitalization Act (“GARA”), 49 U.S.C.A. § 40101 et seq., a statute of

repose which bars personal injury and wrongful death actions against aircraft

manufacturers arising more than 18 years after an aircraft is delivered to its first purchaser

or lessee. In response, plaintiffs do not contest that the elements of GARA are satisfied

here; nor do they argue that any of GARA’s exceptions apply. Instead, as a “defense” to

Raytheon’s GARA defense, plaintiffs argue that the presumption against extraterritoriality

precludes GARA’s application in this case.

I. Legal Standards

A. Summary Judgment 

Summary judgment is proper where the pleadings, discovery, and affidavits show

that there is “no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled

to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). Material facts are those that may

affect the outcome of the case. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248

(1986). A dispute as to a material fact is genuine if there is sufficient evidence for a

reasonable jury to return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Id.

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The party moving for summary judgment bears the initial burden of identifying those

portions of the pleadings, discovery, and affidavits which demonstrate the absence of a

genuine issue of material fact. See Celotex Corp. v. Cattrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). 

Where the moving party will have the burden of proof at trial, it must affirmatively

demonstrate that no reasonable trier of fact could find other than for the moving party. But

on an issue for which the opposing party will have the burden of proof at trial, the moving

party need only point out “that there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving

party’s case.” Id.

B. GARA Generally

In 1994, Congress enacted GARA, 49 U.S.C.A. § 40101 et seq., because it “was

deeply concerned about the enormous product liability costs that our tort system had

imposed upon manufacturers of general aviation aircraft.” Lyon v. Agusta S.P.A., 252 F.3d

1078, 1084 (9th Cir. 2001). Congress “believed that manufacturers were being driven to

the wall because, among other things, of the long tail of liability attached to those aircraft,

which could be used for decades after they were first manufactured and sold.” Id. (citing

H.R. Rep. No. 103-525 pt. I, at 1-4 (1994), reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1638, 1638-41). 

Congress therefore enacted GARA, a statute of repose generally limiting aircraft

manufacturers’ liability for accidents to those occurring within 18 years of the first delivery

of the airplane. See id.; see GARA § 2(a)(1). 

GARA provides in pertinent part:

(a) IN GENERAL. Except as provided in subsection (b), no civil action

for damages for death or injury to persons or damage to property arising out

of an accident involving a general aviation aircraft may be brought against the

manufacturer of the aircraft or the manufacturer of any new component,

system, subassembly, or other part of the aircraft, in its capacity as a

manufacturer if the accident occurred –

(1) after the applicable limitation period beginning on —

(A) the date of delivery of the aircraft to its first purchaser

or lessee, if delivered directly from the manufacturer; or

(B) the date of first delivery of the aircraft to a person

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1

Raytheon has included a copy of the Act at Tab 1 of its Compendium of Authorities in

support of its motion.

4

 engaged in the business of selling or leasing such aircraft; or

(2) with respect to any new component, system,

subassembly, or other part which replaced another component, system,

subassembly, or other part originally in, or which was added to, the aircraft,

and which is alleged to have caused such death, injury, or damage, after the

applicable limitation period beginning on the date of completion of the

replacement or addition.

GARA § 2(a).1

There are four specifically delineated exceptions as well as a “rolling” feature, which

extends the limitations period, none of which are at issue here. 

The Ninth Circuit has explained that GARA

does not run from the date on which an injury occurs. There will be a statute

of limitations which runs from that date. Rather, it runs from what amounts to

the date of the first transfer from the manufacturer. Thus, if an accident

occurs one day before the GARA period runs, an action will be possible and

will be governed by the usual statute of limitations. If it occurs on the day

after the GARA period runs, no action whatsoever is possible.

Lyon, 252 F.3d at 1084.

C. Extraterritoriality Doctrine

There is a “longstanding principle of American law that legislation is presumed to

apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States unless the contrary

affirmative intention of Congress is clearly expressed.” Arc Ecology v. United States Dept.

of the Air Force, 411 F.3d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir. 2005) (citing EEOC v. Arabian American Oil

Co., 499 U.S. 244 (1991) (“Aramco”)). “Courts must assume that Congress legislates with

knowledge of the presumption that a statute ‘is primarily concerned with domestic

conditions.’” Id. “In essence, then courts must resolve restrictively any doubts concerning

the extraterritorial application of a statute.” Id. (citing Smith v. United States, 507 U.S. 197,

204 (1993)). 

In Aramco, the Supreme Court held that a statute could avoid the presumption

against extraterritoriality only through a “clear statement” in the statute itself indicating

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congressional intent to provide relief to such foreign claimants. 499 U.S. at 258

(concluding that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not apply extraterritorially to

regulate employment practices of U.S. firms that employ Americans abroad). However, in

Smith, “the Supreme Court relaxed the requirement of a ‘clear statement’ of congressional

intent within the statute.” Arc Ecology, 411 F.3d at 1098 n.2 (citing Smith, 507 U.S. at 204). 

The Smith Court held “that there must only be ‘clear evidence of congressional intent to

apply the’ statute extraterritorially.” Id. (citing Smith, 507 U.S. at 204) (concluding that

Federal Tort Claims Act by which government waived sovereign immunity did not apply to

carpenter killed in Antarctica who was under contract with U.S. agency even though

Antarctica is “a sovereignless region without civil tort law of its own”).

II. Defendant’s Motion

Because the extraterritoriality issue is raised by plaintiffs in their opposition papers,

Raytheon’s discussion of the issue is contained primarily in its reply brief. Additionally,

many of plaintiffs’ arguments in their opposition are in anticipation of Raytheon’s reply. 

In opposition to Raytheon’s motion, plaintiffs argue that the presumption against

extraterritoriality applies to GARA in this case. They contend that the presumption applies

because this case “involves alleged injuries to foreign citizens in their home countries,

caused by the activities of United States defendants that occurred at least partly in the

United States.” Plaintiffs argue that this presumption against the extraterritorial application

of federal statutes can only be rebutted by a clearly expressed, contrary intent by

Congress.

Plaintiffs contend that “the nature or purpose of the United States statute is

irrelevant” with respect to whether the presumption applies. They argue that “[t]he rule is

clear: if an incident takes place outside the United States, United States statutes will not

govern, absent a clear and explicit indication that Congress so intended.” They further

assert that this is irrespective of whether the statute is a remedial one. See Kollias v. D&G

Marine Maintenance, 29 F.3d 67, 71 (2d Cir. 1994). They note that prior to GARA’s

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enactment, there were few if any federal statutes like GARA, which operate as defensive

federal statutes. 

Additionally, plaintiffs argue that GARA is applicable even if the aircraft itself was

manufactured in Kansas. Plaintiffs acknowledge that the location of the aircraft’s design

and manufacture is “certainly an important consideration” when deciding issues such as a

convenient forum. However, they assert that “the Supreme Court has stated very clearly

that only one factor is relevant in applying the presumption against territoriality: the location

of the event.” See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 711-712 (2004) (calling into

question utilization of “headquarters doctrine” in tort cases used by federal courts in some

cases “to assume jurisdiction over tort claims against the Government for foreign harm”)

(cited by plaintiffs on the record at the April 5, 2006 hearing); see also Stoddard v. LingTemco-Vought, Inc., 513 F.Supp. 314, 318 (C.D. Cal. 1981) (holding in wrongful death

lawsuit based on a plane crash that occurred over the Pacific Ocean, that “a tort is deemed

to occur at the place where injury is sustained regardless of the place of origin of the

negligent act”). 

Plaintiffs further contend that this is not a case where domestic effects undermine

the extraterritoriality presumption. Plaintiffs argue that any rules relating to liability will

therefore have an extraterritorial effect “notwithstanding certain connections between the

controversy and the United States.” Plaintiffs note specifically the Supreme Court’s

decisions in Aramco and Smith, and also the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Subafilms Ltd. v.

MGM, 24 F.3d 1008 (9th Cir. 1994), in support of their argument that domestic effects

alone are not enough to defeat the presumption. 

In reply, Raytheon argues that the extraterritoriality doctrine is inapplicable here for

essentially two reasons. First, Raytheon argues that the presumption is inapplicable

because plaintiffs are not affirmatively seeking relief under a United States statute – but

instead under Macedonian law, and GARA itself does not seek to regulate conduct, nor

does it create a cause of action. Second, regarding the location of the conduct regulated

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by GARA, Raytheon contends that the conduct giving rise to plaintiffs’ claims – Raytheon’s

design and manufacture of the aircraft – occurred solely in the United States, and therefore

the extraterritorial doctrine is inapplicable. Raytheon relies on a D.C. Circuit case in which

the court held that “[b]y definition, an extraterritorial application of a statute involves the

regulation of conduct that occurs beyond U.S. borders.” Environmental Defense Fund, Inc.

v. Massey, 986 F.2d 528, 531 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (emphasis added). 

Raytheon further asserts that GARA is simply a statute of repose. It argues that the

presumption against extraterritoriality is a jurisdictional concept, and that since this court

has diversity jurisdiction and all of plaintiffs’ claims arise under Macedonian law, the

presumption is inapplicable here. Raytheon also argues that in all of the controlling cases,

including those cited by plaintiffs, the plaintiffs in those cases have all, unlike plaintiffs here,

sought affirmative relief under a United States statute for conduct that occurred in a foreign

country. 

III. Analysis

The court has set forth the arguments of the parties in some detail. They have

raised numerous issues and framed them differently from each other. But after a careful

review of the papers and the authorities upon which the parties rely, the court concludes

that the issue presented here is more straightforward than the parties’ papers suggest. 

As previously stated, the presumption against extraterritoriality generally means that

a law passed by Congress applies only to conduct occurring within the territory of the

United States. As the parties seem to recognize, there is generally a two-step approach

with respect to determining whether the presumption applies. The initial inquiry requires the

court to determine whether or not the presumption applies at all; here, whether the

application of GARA to the conduct it is designed to regulate presents an issue of

extraterritoriality. See, e.g., Gushi Bros. Co. v. Bank of Guam, 28 F.3d 1535, 1538-39 (9th

Cir. 1994); Massey, 986 F.2d at 531-32. This typically requires considering whether the

statute seeks to regulate conduct in the United States or in another sovereign country. See

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id. If the court determines that the conduct occurred beyond U.S. borders, then the second

step requires the court to consider whether there is “‘clear evidence of congressional intent

to apply’ the statute extraterritorially.” Arc Ecology, 411 F.3d at 1098 n.2 (citing Smith, 507

U.S. at 204).

In this case, the court need not reach the second step, because the conduct GARA

seeks to regulate is conduct occurring only in the United States. Plaintiffs argue that the

conduct the court should focus on, is not really conduct at all but the “event;” here, the

plane crash. They argue that federal statutes do not apply to events in a foreign country. 

Defendant, on the other hand, focuses on the design and manufacture of the aircraft. It

argues that because the plane was designed and manufactured domestically, GARA bars

the lawsuit. Defendant’s view is closer to that of the court’s, but is not identical. 

Neither side has chosen to examine the actual language of GARA in making these

arguments. GARA does not purport to regulate either accidents or the manufacture of

airplanes. Rather, if it can be construed to “regulate” any “conduct”, it must be construed to

regulate litigation against manufacturers of airplanes. It provides a procedural bar, in much

the same way a statute of limitations does. It applies to litigation brought or contemplated

against manufacturers in the federal and state courts of the United States. As Congress

has no power to regulate litigation in foreign countries, it is difficult to see how GARA could

be applied by a federal court extraterritorially. It would be up to any foreign court to

determine under its own choice of law principles whether to apply GARA to litigation

occurring within its borders.

The parties cited no Ninth Circuit authority that is on point and the court is aware of

none. However, the Massey case, cited by defendant at the hearing, is most instructive. 

In Massey, an environmental group brought a lawsuit under the National Environmental

Policy Act (“NEPA”), attempting to enjoin the National Science Foundation (“NSF”) from

permitting the incineration of food waste in Antarctica. 986 F.2d at 531-32. The D.C.

Circuit held that the presumption against extraterritoriality is not applicable when the

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conduct regulated by the government occurs within the United States. Id. at 531. The

court rejected NSF’s argument that the presumption barred NEPA’s application to agency

decisions with impact outside United States territory. Id. at 531-32. The Massey court

ultimately concluded that “NEPA is designed to control the decisionmaking process of U.S.

federal agencies, not the substance of agency decisions,” and that therefore the activity

being regulated by NEPA was not the construction of the food waste facility in Antarctica,

but instead the agency decisionmaking process that authorized the facility’s construction. 

Id. The court then concluded that when the activity regulated by the statute occurs

primarily within the United States, the presumption does not apply “[e]ven where the

significant effects of the regulated conduct are felt outside the U.S.” Id. at 531. Because

the NSF in Massey had conducted its decisionmaking process largely within the U.S., the

D.C. Circuit found that NEPA “impose[d] no substantive requirements which could be

interpreted to govern abroad,” and the presumption against extraterritoriality did not apply. 

Id. at 533.

Similarly, GARA is designed to regulate conduct – the filing of civil lawsuits – in the

United States and imposes no substantive requirements which could be interpreted to

govern conduct abroad. Thus, the court agrees with defendant, albeit for a different

reason, that the presumption against extraterritoriality does not apply in this case because

the conduct GARA regulates is inherently domestic. 

The parties spent a considerable amount of time in their papers and at the hearing

on an issue they chose to frame as whether the presumption against extraterritoriality

applies to both statutes that create a cause of action and those that operate defensively.

Defendant relies on the Southern District of Texas decision in Alter v. Bell Helicopter

Textron, Inc., 944 F.Supp. 531, 541 (S.D. Tex. 1996). That court is the only federal court

to explicitly address the issue of GARA’s application to crashes occurring outside of the

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2

 Other courts, however, have implicitly held that GARA applies to extraterritorial

accidents. See Bain ex rel. Bain v. Honeywell Intern., Inc., 167 F.Supp.2d 932 (E.D. Tex.

2001) (involving accident that occurred in British Columbia); Shen Li v. Bell Helicopter Textron,

Inc., Def. Compendium at Exh.13 (N.D. Tex. 1996); Campbell v. Parker-Hannifin Corp., 82 Cal.

Rptr. 2d 202 (Cal. Ct. App. 1992). 

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United States.2 In Alter, the surviving plaintiffs filed two separate wrongful death products

liability actions in Texas state court arising out of a helicopter crash in Israel. The plaintiffs

argued that GARA did not apply to accidents that occur in a foreign country, and that

Congress had not evinced an intent that the statute apply to accidents outside the United

States. Id. The district court distinguished the Supreme Court’s decision in Smith, noting

that it involved a statute, the FTCA, that created a cause of action. Id. By contrast, the

court concluded that GARA “eliminates certain claims against aircraft and component

manufacturers.” Id. Thus, the Alter court essentially held that the presumption against

extraterritoriality was not applicable, distinguishing between statutes that create claims and

those that extinguish liability. Id.

Plaintiffs rely primarily on Kollias, in which the plaintiff, an employee injured on a

vessel on the high seas, sought review of the agency decision finding that the Longshore

and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (“LHWCA”) did not apply to injuries on the high

seas. 29 F.3d at 69. Defendants in Kollias argued that the LHWCA did not apply

extraterritorially to accidents occurring on the high seas. Plaintiffs argued that the

presumption against extraterritoriality did not apply to maritime legislation generally, citing a

1922 Supreme Court decision, United States v. Bowman, 260 U.S. 94 (1922). The Second

Circuit rejected plaintiffs’ arguments, holding that:

The Supreme Court’s recent discussions of the presumption against

extraterritoriality, none of which mentions Bowman, seem to require that all

statutes, without exception, be construed to apply within the United States

only, unless a contrary intent appears.

Kollias, 29 F.3d at 71 (citing Smith, 113 S.Ct. at 1183 & n.5; Aramco, 499 U.S. at 248).

The distinction the parties draw between affirmative and defensive statutes is not

insignificant. The court notes that all of the controlling Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit

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cases have concerned the application of the presumption to a statute that created an

affirmative cause of action rather than a procedural bar to liability. See Aramco, 499 U.S.

at 258 (plaintiffs brought claims under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act); Smith, 507

U.S. at 1180 (plaintiffs brought claims under the FTCA); Arc Ecology, 411 F.3d at 1098

(plaintiffs brought claims under CERCLA); Subafilms, 24 F.3d at 1098 (plaintiffs brought

claims under U.S. copyright laws); Gushi Bros., 28 F.3d at 1537 (plaintiff sued the bank

under the U.S. Bank Holding Company Act). Even the Second Circuit case relied on by

plaintiffs for the proposition that the presumption applies to all statutes, Kollias, involved the

plaintiff’s assertion of a cause of action under a federal statute, the Longshore and Harbor

Workers’ Compensation Act. See 29 F.3d at 71. 

While the court finds it unnecessary, in view of its earlier finding that the presumption

is inapplicable here, to go so far as to find that the presumption against extraterritoriality

applies only to statutes that create causes of action, the cited cases do support a finding

that the presumption does not apply to statutes providing a bar to civil litigation in the

United States. Moreover, where a statute, like GARA, operates simply as a procedural bar,

the principles underlying the presumption do not come into play. Unlike statutes that

create affirmative claims, there simply is no risk that application of GARA to this case will

result in an “unintended clash[] between our laws and [Macedonian laws] which could result

in international discord.” Aramco, 499 U.S. at 248; see also Subafilms, 24 F.3d at 1098

(noting that the presumption’s role in mitigating “clashes” between domestic and

international law supported its application in that case).

Finally, in order for plaintiffs to prevail, the court would necessarily have to find that

GARA does not apply to airplane crashes occurring in foreign countries. However, to find

that Congress intended to create an exception to GARA’s procedural bar in the case of

foreign accidents would, as noted by the district court in Alter, “have the anomalous effect

of preventing litigants from bringing an action in the United States for an accident occurring

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in the United States while allowing litigants to bring the same action in the United States if

the accident occurred abroad.” 944 F.Supp. at 541. 

CONCLUSION

Because GARA bars all of plaintiffs’ claims in this case, the court GRANTS

defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to all claims. This order fully adjudicates the

motion listed at No. 17 of the clerk’s docket for this case and terminates all other pending

motions. The clerk shall close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 12, 2006

______________________________

PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON

United States District Judge

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