Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-98-07135/USCOURTS-caDC-98-07135-0/pdf.json

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

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 28, 1999 Decided March 12, 1999

No. 98-7135

Martha Haldimann and Blaise Haldimann,

husband and wife,

Appellants

v.

Delta Airlines, Inc.,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

97cv01670)

Barry C. Hansen argued the cause for appellants. With

him on the brief was Michael J. Pangia.

William G. Schaffer argued the cause and filed the brief

for appellee.

Before: Williams and Randolph, Circuit Judges and

Buckley, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Williams.

Williams, Circuit Judge: On June 19, 1996 Martha Haldimann set out from Geneva on a journey to the United States.

Swissair was to take her to Washington and, at the end, back

to Geneva; Delta was to take her from Washington (leaving

about a week after her arrival) to Pensacola (to visit her

parents), then on to Gainesville (for a seminar at the University of Florida), and finally back to Washington in time for

her to depart for Geneva on July 15. On the Pensacola to

Gainesville leg of the journey, Haldimann was injured when

one of the engines caught fire during preparation for takeoff.

She sued Delta for her injuries, her husband joining for loss

of consortium. If the Pensacola-Gainesville flight was "international transportation" within the meaning of the Warsaw

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Convention,1 then its provisions apply, with the effect (among

others) of limiting Delta's liability to $75,000. The district

court concluded that the Pensacola-Gainesville leg was international transportation, and granted Delta's motion for partial

summary judgment to that effect. It then granted plaintiffs'

motion to certify the order for immediate appeal under 28

U.S.C. s 1292(b), and we granted the petition for such an

appeal. We affirm.

* * *

The Convention defines international transportation as:

[A]ny 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 either within the territories of two High Contracting Parties, or within the

territory of a single High Contracting Party, if there is

an agreed stopping place within a territory subject to the

sovereignty ... of another power ...

Article 1(2), 49 U.S.C. s 40105 note (emphasis added). The

Convention also provides that transportation to be performed

by successive carriers shall be deemed to be

__________

1 Convention 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. s 40105 note.

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.

Article 1(3).

Although the emphasized language in Article 1(2) might

support a claim that the entire trip was international, the

parties assume that it is Article 1(3) that controls, and we

follow suit. The language of the Article 1(3), "if it has been

regarded by the parties as a single operation," 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. In fact, 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. The cases mostly involve application of Article 28(1), allowing jurisdiction in the place of

"destination," which on a round-trip means the starting place.

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Thus, where Polish citizens flew from Warsaw to New York

intending not to return to Poland, but bought round-trip

tickets because otherwise the regime would not have allowed

them out of Poland, the court treated the ticket as controlling.

So the journey was the full round-trip, and Warsaw the

"destination." Klos v. Polskie Linie Lotnicze, 133 F.3d 164,

166-68 (2d Cir. 1997). And when a traveler bought a roundtrip ticket from Dakar to New York, leaving the date of the

return journey open, he was held to have embarked on a

round-trip even though he said (apparently without contradiction) that he intended to remain in New York and had

bought the round-trip ticket only because it was cheaper than

a one-way. Swaminathan v. Swiss Air Transport Co., 962

F.2d 387 (5th Cir. 1992). See also Sopcak v. Northern

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Mountain Helicopter Service, 52 F.3d 817, 819 (9th Cir. 1995)

(looking to "intention of the parties as expressed in the

contract of transportation"); Petrire v. Spantax, 756 F.2d

263, 264-65 (2d Cir. 1985).

Here, Haldimann arranged her entire travel itinerary

through a Swiss travel agency called Lathion-Voyages, which

booked space on Swissair for the transatlantic travel and on

Delta for the travel within the United States. The Swissair

and Delta tickets were contained in separate booklets, but

both were issued and paid for on the same date, March 7,

1996. Both tickets share the same record number, with the

consequence that a Delta agent pulling up the Delta flights on

a computer would also see the Swissair legs of the journey,

and vice versa.

The Second Circuit in Petrire, and a host of district courts,

have found simultaneous issue of ticket booklets at a single

place sufficient to establish the "single operation" required by

Article 1(3). 756 F.2d at 264-65; see also McLoughlin v.

Commercial Airways (PTY) Ltd., 602 F. Supp. 29, 33

(E.D.N.Y. 1985) ("The law seems clear that where, as here,

the parties arrange and pay in full for an international trip at

the outset, each leg of the journey (even though some legs

may be wholly domestic, covered by a separate ticket and

carried on a separate airline) is within the Convention");

Vergara v. Aeroflot Russian Int'l Airlines, 390 F. Supp. 1266

(D. Neb. 1975) (court finds one undivided trip under Convention where each plaintiff purchased at same time, same place,

and through the same agent six booklets of tickets for an

around-the-world trip on eight different airlines with stops in

as many countries). They have reached that result apparently without even ascertaining whether a single record number

embraced all legs of the journey.

The plaintiffs emphasize that the Swissair and Delta components of the journey were in separate ticket booklets and

that the entire trip took more than a month. No court has

regarded either of such factors as militating even in the

slightest against finding a "single operation." And the language of the Convention argues against doing so, as Article

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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." The Second Circuit in Petrire expressly

declined to allow the existence of multiple ticket booklets to

affect the analysis, even though, curiously, it appeared to

assume that a single operation required that there be only

one contract. Petrire, 756 F.2d at 265 ("The already fine

distinctions that have developed in construing the Warsaw

Convention would become absurd if the existence of a single

contract turned on whether the ... coupons issued for travel

... were enclosed in one or two booklets"). Nor are plaintiffs able to cite a single case relying on the duration of a

journey, even though the occasional case will reveal in the

statement of facts a journey about as long as the plaintiff's

here. See Vergara, 390 F. Supp. at 1268 (22 days scheduled

for journey, with flights "open" for later phases of trip).

Plaintiffs offer no reason why duration should be of any

relevance when other factors suggest a single undivided trip.

It may seem odd that Ms. Haldimann's Delta flights,

occurring entirely within the United States and in themselves

certainly capable of being viewed as a complete journey,

should prove to be part of "international transportation."

But the Convention aims primarily to "achiev[e] uniformity of

rules governing claims arising from international air transportation." Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 U.S. 530, 552

(1991). And the liability limit, here cutting against Ms.

Haldimann, is only part of a trade-off, balanced as it is by the

Convention's presumption of liability. See Articles 17 et seq.;

see also El Al Israel Airlines v. Tseng, __ U.S. __, 119 S. Ct.

662, 672 (1999); Republic Nat'l Bank v. Eastern Airlines, 815

F.2d 232, 236 (2d Cir. 1987). It thus enables international

travelers to secure the benefits of the treaty regime even for

segments of international transportation that are wholly within the territory of a signatory with a tort system far narrower

than that of the treaty.

Thus, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to

the nonmoving party, as we must on summary judgment,

Adickes v. S.H. Kress and Co., 398 U.S. 144, 157 (1970), the

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Pensacola-Gainesville journey was, as a matter of law, part of

"international transportation."

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

So ordered.

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