Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-03-07129/USCOURTS-caDC-03-07129-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 310
Nature of Suit: Airplane Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 16, 2004 Decided March 18, 2005

No. 03-7129

KATHLEEN ROBERTSON,

APPELLANT

v.

AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC.,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 01cv02426)

Lisa A. Fishberg argued the cause for appellant. On the

briefs was Barry Coburn.

Ronald G. DeWald argued the cause and filed the brief for

appellee.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and GARLAND and

ROBERTS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Kathleen Robertson sued

American Airlines for damages resulting from burns she

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 1 of 10
2

sustained on a flight from Denver to Chicago. If that flight

qualifies as “international transportation” within the meaning of

the Warsaw Convention, Robertson’s suit is barred by the

Convention’s statute of limitations. The district court concluded

that the flight -- which was one leg of a trip that began in

London and ended in Washington the same day -- did so qualify.

We affirm.

I

In 1998, appellant Robertson was a “war games” strategist

living in the Washington, D.C. area. On August 7, 1998, she

had a travel agent, Nancy Thompson of Gateway Travel, book

her a round-trip flight between Denver and London on British

Airways (BA), departing on September 2 and returning on

September 8. Three days later, on August 10, Thompson also

booked Robertson on a round-trip flight between Washington,

D.C. and Denver, via Chicago, on American Airlines (AA).

That flight was to depart on August 29 and to return on

September 8. Thus, as initially scheduled, Robertson was to

leave Washington on August 29; to stay in Denver for several

days before continuing to London on September 2; and to depart

London for home on September 8, with a three-hour layover in

Denver. On August 24, Robertson used Gateway Travel to book

an alternative route home: a one-way ticket on AA from

London to Washington, via New York, departing and arriving on

September 10. 

As scheduled, Robertson flew from Washington to Denver

on August 29. She remained for a few days in Denver, where

she conducted a war games exercise with the city’s mayor, and

then flew from Denver to London on September 2. That day,

Robertson had her initially scheduled return flights -- LondonDenver on BA, and Denver-Chicago-Washington on AA --

changed from September 8 to September 10, the same date for

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 2 of 10
3

1Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to

International Transportation by Air, Oct. 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000, T.S.

No. 876 (1934), reprinted in 49 U.S.C. § 40105 note.

which she held the alternative ticket from London to

Washington on AA. Thus, Robertson had two available

itineraries for her return home on September 10. First, she could

take an 8:00 a.m. AA flight from London, connect in New York,

and arrive in Washington at 2:10 p.m. Second, she could take

a 10:20 a.m. BA flight from London, arrive in Denver at 1:20

p.m., switch to a 4:32 p.m. AA flight from Denver, connect in

Chicago, and arrive in Washington at 11:19 p.m. 

Robertson chose the latter -- and later -- alternative and

departed from London on the morning of September 10 aboard

the BA flight to Denver. After a three-hour layover in Denver,

she boarded the AA flight to Washington by way of Chicago.

En route, she asked a flight attendant to cool a “gel pack” she

was using to treat a sore back. According to Robertson’s

complaint, the attendant returned with an air-sickness bag

containing the gel pack and dry (rather than ordinary) ice. When

Robertson put the bag on her back, she suffered third-degree

burns.

Just short of three years later, on September 7, 2001,

Robertson sued American Airlines in the Superior Court of the

District of Columbia. American removed the action to the

United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On

January 15, 2003, American filed a motion for summary

judgment, contending that the action was governed by the

Warsaw Convention1 because the claim arose out of

international transportation, and that the Convention’s two-year

statute of limitations, see Art. 29(1), 49 Stat. 3021, barred

Robertson’s claim. Robertson argued that the Convention did

not apply, and that the action was instead governed by the

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 3 of 10
4

District of Columbia’s three-year statute of limitations, D.C.

Code § 12-301. The district court agreed with American and

granted its motion for summary judgment. Robertson v.

American Airlines, Inc., 277 F. Supp. 2d 91, 100 (D.D.C. 2003).

II

We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment

de novo. Lathram v. Snow, 336 F.3d 1085, 1088 (D.C. Cir.

2003). Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c), summary

judgment should be awarded only if “there is no genuine issue

as to any material fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to a

judgment as a matter of law.” See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby,

Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247 (1986). We conclude that the district

court’s grant of summary judgment to American Airlines was

correct.

The Warsaw Convention governs air carrier liability for

claims arising out of “international transportation” of persons

and property by air. Art. 1(1), 49 Stat. 3014; see El Al Israel

Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155, 160 (1999). As

we have noted before, the Convention’s provisions sometimes

advantage plaintiffs and sometimes defendants, depending upon

the circumstances. Haldimann v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 168 F.3d

1324, 1326 (D.C. Cir. 1999). In this case, the parties agree that

if the flight on which Robertson was injured qualifies as

international transportation, the Convention applies and its twoyear statute of limitations bars her recovery. Appellant’s Br. at

10; Appellee’s Br. at 4.

Article 1(2) of the Convention defines “international

transportation” as “any transportation in which, according to the

contract made by the parties, the place of departure and the place

of destination, whether or not there be a break in the

transportation . . . , are situated . . . within the territories of two

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 4 of 10
5

High Contracting Parties.” 49 Stat. 3014. Article 1(3) further

provides that: 

Transportation to be performed by several successive

air carriers shall be deemed, for the purposes of this

convention, to be one undivided transportation, if it has

been regarded by the parties as a single operation,

whether it has been agreed upon under the form of a

single contract or of a series of contracts, and it shall

not lose its international character merely because one

contract or a series of contracts is to be performed

entirely within a territory subject to the sovereignty . .

. of the same High Contracting Party.

Id. at 3015. Thus, the Convention contemplates that an entirely

domestic leg of an international itinerary will be covered by the

Convention as part of “one undivided [international]

transportation” -- even if it is performed by a “successive”

carrier and even if the various legs are agreed upon under “a

series of contracts” -- as long as it has been “regarded by the

parties” as part of “a single operation.” 

But how do we decide how a particular trip was “regarded

by the parties”? In Haldimann, we noted that, although the

Convention’s language “suggests that we must look to the

intention of the parties,” it “would seem rather difficult to do so,

for they -- especially the traveler -- are unlikely ever to have

remotely considered the question whether the transportation was

‘a single operation,’ or ever to have pondered what that phrase

might mean.” 168 F.3d at 1325. We further noted that, “in the

rare case where there has been evidence of the traveler’s

subjective intent, and it contradicted the court’s inference from

specific documentary indicia, courts have held that the indicia

trump subjective evidence.” Id. Relying upon the available

objective indicia in that case, we held that a Delta Airlines flight

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 5 of 10
6

from Pensacola, Florida to Gainesville, Florida was part of a

single operation when it was one leg of the following itinerary:

from Geneva, Switzerland to Washington, D.C., on Swissair;

from Washington to Pensacola to Gainesville and back to

Washington, on Delta; and from Washington back to Geneva, on

Swissair. Other circuits have similarly eschewed subjective in

favor of objective evidence of intent in making this kind of

determination. See Coyle v. P.T. Garuda Indon., 363 F.3d 979,

987 (9thCir. 2004); Petrire v. Spantax, S.A., 756 F.2d 263, 266

(2d Cir. 1985). We -- like the district court -- follow that course

here. 

We begin by asking whether Robertson regarded her

London-Denver travel and her Denver-Chicago-Washington

travel as a single operation. There can be no genuine dispute

over this question. First, on the morning of September 10, 1998,

Robertson held alternative itineraries for her flight from London:

one on AA through New York to Washington, and a later flight

on BA connecting to AA in Denver and on to Washington via

Chicago. This indicates that both the intermediate stops and the

choice of carriers were incidental to her plan to fly from London

to Washington that day. 

Second, and in our view dispositive, Robertson scheduled

her BA-AA connection in Denver so that her flight to Chicago

(and on to Washington) would depart within about three hours

of her arrival from London. It is unlikely that a layover of that

length would even have given her time to leave the airport, and

the record confirms that Robertson had no purpose for being in

Denver on that day other than to make the plane connection.

See In re Air Crash Disaster of Aviateca Flight 901, 29 F. Supp.

2d 1333, 1342 (S.D. Fla. 1997) (“Common sense dictates that

when a traveler plans such a short layover between the parts of

a journey, the traveler regards the layover as merely an

intermediate stopping place and not his or her destination.”).

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 6 of 10
7

Accordingly, there can be no genuine dispute that Robertson

regarded the Denver-Chicago trip as part of a unified journey

from London to Washington. 

Robertson points to a number of circumstances that she

maintains are inconsistent with the conclusion that she regarded

her travel as a single operation. She notes, for example, that on

the outbound trip she stayed in Denver for four days, where she

engaged in work that was different from the business she had in

London. But the argument that these facts are inconsistent with

her regarding the journey as a single operation is foreclosed by

Haldimann, in which we found a single operation

notwithstanding multiple-day stay-overs -- with different

purposes -- between several legs of the plaintiffs’ itinerary. See

168 F.3d at 1324, 1326; see also Art. 1(2), 49 Stat. 3014

(providing that transportation may constitute “‘international

transportation’ . . . whether or not there be a break in the

transportation”). In any event, this argument would not affect

the conclusion that Robertson regarded the London-DenverWashington return trip, which involved only a three-hour

layover, as a single operation.

Robertson also points out that she purchased the two roundtrip tickets (Denver-London-Denver and Washington-DenverWashington) on two different airlines, that the tickets were

issued in separate booklets, that she purchased them on different

days, and that she received them in separate mailings. But the

fact that the tickets were purchased on two different airlines is

what frames the question, not what decides it: the point of

Article 1(3) is that “[t]ransportation to be performed by several

successive air carriers shall be deemed . . . to be one undivided

transportation” if regarded by the parties as a single operation.

49 Stat. 3015 (emphasis added). Nor, as we held in Haldimann,

does the fact that the tickets were issued in separate booklets

“militat[e] even in the slightest against finding a ‘single

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 7 of 10
8

2Robertson did dispute the rule during questioning at oral

argument, but oral argument is too late to raise an objection for

appellate consideration. See, e.g., Ark Las Vegas Rest. Corp. v. NLRB,

334 F.3d 99, 108 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2003); C.J. Krehbiel Co. v. NLRB, 844

F.2d 880, 883 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

operation,’” since “Article 1(3) views transportation as

‘undivided . . . whether it has been agreed upon under the form

of a single contract or of a series of contracts.’” 168 F.3d at

1326 (quoting Art. 1(3), 49 Stat. 3015). For the same reason, we

regard as insignificant the fact that three days separated one

purchase from the other (along with its corollary that the tickets

were sent in separate mailings). Indeed, while the initial

purchases were made three days apart, they plainly were

coordinated to link the two round trips together; and when the

return trip was changed to September 10, the London-Denver

and the Denver-Washington legs were changed simultaneously.

The remaining question is how American Airlines regarded

Robertson’s travel. There is no doubt that if American knew the

objective facts of Robertson’s itinerary as set forth above, the

airline -- like Robertson -- would have regarded the DenverChicago-Washington flight as part of a single operation with the

London-Denver flight. But did American know? American did

have a record of a London-New York-Washington ticket for

Robertson dated September 10. However, because the AA ticket

she ultimately used was only for Denver-Chicago-Washington,

it is not clear that the airline would have known she was

traveling internationally that day. Noting that other district

“courts have held that a travel agent’s knowledge of a plaintiff’s

travel intentions is imputed to the carrier,” the district court

resolved the issue by applying the same rule. Robertson, 277 F.

Supp. 2d at 99. Because Robertson’s appellate briefs do not

dispute it, we apply the imputation rule as well.2

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 8 of 10
9

3Although Robertson submitted an affidavit from Helen

Klohmann, an owner of Gateway, the Klohmann affidavit does not

state whether Gateway made the change. Instead, Klohmann (who did

not personally handle Robertson’s bookings) declares that “Gateway

Travel’s understanding was that” Robertson’s Washington-DenverWashington and Denver-London-Denver “itineraries were separate

and distinct.” Pl.’s Opp’n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 1. The district

court properly regarded the affidavit as irrelevant because the Warsaw

Convention inquiry “focuses on objective rather than subjective

evidence, and particularly [not on] subjective evidence from a party

who was not directly involved in the booking transaction.” Robertson,

277 F. Supp. 2d at 99 n.13.

4The district court’s opinion contains a footnote stating that “[t]he

record does not indicate whether [Robertson] used a travel agent” to

change the flights to September 10, see 277 F. Supp. 2d at 94 n.4, a

Robertson concedes that a travel agency, Gateway Travel,

made the reservations for all of the BA and AA flights up to and

including those on September 8 (as well as for the London-New

York-Washington AA flight scheduled for September 10).

Appellant’s Br. at 3. Although Robertson does not concede that

she also used Gateway to change the September 8 tickets to

September 10, she does not dispute that Gateway knew of the

change, Oral Arg. Tape at 14:45-18:15, and does not assert that

she or anyone other than Gateway made the change -- a fact that

presumably would be within her personal knowledge.3

Moreover, both BA’s and AA’s internal Passenger Name

Records (PNRs) for Robertson’s September 10 flights contain

references to “Gateway Travel Nancy.” J.A. 326, 328.

Accordingly, because the only evidence in the record confirms

that American (through Gateway) knew of the London-Denver

leg of Robertson’s trip, we concur in the district court’s

conclusion that there is no genuine dispute that the airline “was

aware of [her] international flight plans.” Robertson, 277 F.

Supp. 2d at 99.4

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 9 of 10
10

statement seemingly inconsistent with its conclusion quoted above.

Whatever the court intended by the footnote, we are satisfied to the

contrary for the reasons stated above.

III

We conclude that there is no genuine dispute that the flight

on which Robertson sustained her burns qualifies as

international transportation within the meaning of the Warsaw

Convention. The Convention’s two-year statute of limitations

therefore applies, barring her claim. Accordingly, the judgment

of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of

American is 

Affirmed.

USCA Case #03-7129 Document #884738 Filed: 03/18/2005 Page 10 of 10