Cour de cassation 1ère Chambre civile; 2022-11-09; 1ère Civ. 9 novembre 2022,pourvoi n°21-11.304
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:FR:CCASS:2022:C100752
Date: 2022-11-09
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: France

82022FR1109(53)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
The dispute is between three private individuals (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) and the Tunisian air transport company, Tunis Air (hereinafter ‘the defendant’). The defendant's domicile, and consequent rules of jurisdiction, are disputed.
The plaintiff sought compensation for a long delay on a flight from France to Tunis, operated by the defendant, before the tribunal d'instance of Ivry-sur-Seine (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’), the place of departure of the flight. The defendant argued that the French courts lacked jurisdiction.
This ruling by the Cour de Cassation (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) is rendered on appeal against the ruling of the Cour d'Appel de Paris (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’).
The plaintiff complained that the Court of Appeal declared that the French courts lacked jurisdiction, whereas under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (1), an air carrier which has a subsidiary in a Member State of the European Union, which can be described as a centre of operations that is permanently outward-looking, must be considered to be domiciled in a Member State within the meaning of Articles 4 and 63 of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (2).
The Supreme Court ruled that the plea was inoperative, since the concept of a subsidiary was foreign to the application of Article 63(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast).
In the second plea, the plaintiff argued that it follows from the settled case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union that Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 establishes a standardised and immediate compensation scheme for the damage that is the inconvenience due to flight delays, which precedes the Montreal Convention (3). As such, this European system is autonomous from the Montreal Convention system. The Supreme Court confirmed this interpretation.
The plaintiff then complained that the Court of Appeal ruled that the jurisdiction of the place of embarkation did not have jurisdiction, on the basis of Articles R. 322-2 and R. 321-1 of the code of l’aviation civile (4), which derogate from the general provision of Article 46 of the code de procédure civile (5). The Court of Appeal held that these articles were applicable to the claim for damages and that they did not provide for this grounds of jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court upheld the plaintiff's argument, ruling that under Article 6(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast), if the defendant is not domiciled in a Member State, jurisdiction in each Member State is governed by the law of that Member State.
In this case, the Court of Appeal should have applied Article 46 of code de procédure civile, which stipulates that in contractual matters, in addition to the court for the defendant's place of residence, the plaintiff may choose the court for the place of actual delivery of the goods or the place of performance of the service. The Supreme Court therefore quashed the appellate decision.
(1) Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 (Text with EEA relevance).
(2) Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (recast).
(3) Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (the Montreal Convention).
(4) Code de l’aviation civile (Code of civil aviation).
(5)  Code de procédure civile (Code of civil procedure).