Source: https://casetext.com/case/kohr-v-allegheny-airlines-inc-2
Timestamp: 2019-03-20 21:54:03
Document Index: 85659177

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1407', '§ 1404', '§ 1301', '§ 1508', '§ 1346', '§ 1346', '§ 1407', '§ 50']

Kohr v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc, 504 F.2d 400 | Casetext
Kohr v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc.
504 F.2d 400 (7th Cir. 1974)
Kohrv.Allegheny Airlines, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh CircuitSep 20, 1974
Argued February 14, 1974.
Decided September 20, 1974. Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied November 26, 1974.
Before SWYGERT, Chief Judge, KILEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and HOFFMAN, Senior District Judge.
Judge Kiley heard oral argument in these appeals, but he died on September 6, 1974 before he considered this opinion.
Senior Judge Julius J. Hoffman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is sitting by designation.
Subsequent to the accident, wrongful death actions were commenced on behalf of the estates of all the deceased passengers save one, the estates of three of the four Allegheny crew members, and the estate of Robert W. Carey. In addition, property damages suits were initiated to recover for the destruction of the two aircraft. All of these suits were commenced in various federal district courts on the basis of diversity of citizenship as to defendants Allegheny, Brookside, Forth, and the estate of Carey, and the Federal Tort Claims Act as to the defendant United States. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation assumed jurisdiction over the various actions commenced outside of Indiana and pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407 transferred them to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana for the purpose of supervision of the pretrial discovery. In re Mid-Air Collision Near Fairland, Indiana, 309 F. Supp. 621 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit. 1970). Subsequent to the section 1407 transfer, the district court judge issued orders pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404 transferring cases from respective transferor forums to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana and consolidated those cases with other companion cases that had been initially commenced in the Indiana district court. By the time of trial Allegheny and the United States had filed cross-claims and third-party complaints against Brookside, Forth, and the estate of Carey seeking indemnity and contribution.
Allegheny and the United States raise various issues in an appeal, to which we address the following: (1) whether the district court erred in dismissing the cross-claims and third-party complaints for indemnity and contribution for failure to state claims upon which relief may be granted; (2) whether the district court correctly granted summary judgment to Brookside on the basis of res judicata and collateral estoppel; (3) whether the district court properly entered summary judgment on the basis that settlement of plaintiffs' claims by Allegheny and the United States constituted voluntary payment which barred any claims by Allegheny and the United States against the defendants; (4) whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Forth, Brookside, and the estate of Carey on the ground that the agreement between Allegheny's liability insurers and the United States constituted an accord and satisfaction thereby barring any claim for indemnity and contribution; and (5) whether the district court erred in entering an order dismissing all plaintiffs' claims without prejudice.
That the federal interest in regulating airways is predominant was long ago recognized by Justice Jackson in Northwest Airlines v. Minnesota, 322 U.S. 292, 303, 64 S.Ct. 950, 956, 88 L.Ed. 1283 (1944):
Students of our legal evolution know how this Court interpreted the commerce clause of the Constitution to lift navigable waters of the United States out of local controls and into the domain of federal control. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L.Ed. 23, to United States v. Appalachian Power Co., 311 U.S. 377 [ 61 S.Ct. 291, 85 L.Ed. 243]. Air as an element in which to navigate is even more inevitably federalized by the commerce clause than is navigable water. Local exactions and barriers to free transit in the air would neutralize its indifference to space and its conquest of time.
With the passage of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, 49 U.S.C. § 1301 et seq., Congress expressed the view that the control of aviation should rest exclusively in the hands of the federal government. In section 1108 of the Act, 49 U.S.C. § 1508(a), it is clearly provided that:
The explicit objective of the Act is to foster the development of air commerce. 49 U.S.C. § 1346. To that end, it has been recognized that the principal purpose of the Act is to create one unified system of flight rules and to centralize in the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration the power to promulgate rules for the safe and efficient use of the country's airspace. United States v. Christensen, 419 F.2d 1401 (9th Cir. 1969); Air Line Pilots Association v. Quesada, 276 F.2d 892 (2d Cir. 1960). When the notion of federal preemption over aviation is viewed in combination with the fact that this litigation ensues from a mid-air collision occurring in national airspace, that the Government is a party to the action pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act ( 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b) et seq.), and that this litigation has since its inception been subject to the supervision of the Judicial Panel created by the Multidistrict Litigation Act ( 28 U.S.C. § 1407 et seq.), there is no perceptible reason why federal law should not be applied to determine the rights and liabilities of the parties involved. The interest of the state wherein the fortuitous event of the collision occurred is slight as compared to the dominant federal interest. Accordingly, the rights and liabilities of Allegheny and the United States are peculiarly federal in nature and are to be governed by a federal rule of contribution and indemnity.
In view of the aforementioned predominant federal interest in formulating a rule of contribution and indemnity we are of the view that the Federal Tort Claims Act is not an obstacle to the application of such a rule to the United State's claims. In addition we find no merit in defendants' argument that Allegheny and the United States are estopped to assert the invalidity of the dismissal of their cross-claims and third-party complaints.
Having determined that a federal rule of contribution and indemnity among joint tort-feasors should control in aviation collisions, we reject as being outmoded and entirely unsatisfactory, the contention that the federal rule should be one of "no contribution." We agree that "[t]here is an obvious lack of sense and justice in a rule which permits the entire burden of a loss, for which two defendants were equally, unintentionally responsible, to be shouldered on to one alone, according to the accident of a successful levy of execution, the existence of liability insurance, the plaintiffs' whim or spite, or his collusion with the other wrongdoer, while the latter goes scot free." Prosser, Law of Torts, § 50 (4th ed. 1971).
As to the defense of voluntary payment, the defendants urge that the settlement of plaintiffs' claims by Allegheny and the United States constituted a voluntary payment which barred any claims by them against the defendants. We disagree for it is a well recognized policy that settlements are to be encouraged, and we have previously held that a voluntary settlement does not bar a subsequent suit for indemnity. Chicago, Rock Island Pacific Ry. Co. v. United States, 220 F.2d 939, 941 (7th Cir. 1955). Moreover, we note that in applying the federal rule of contribution and indemnity the trier of fact is to make a determination as to what was a reasonable amount at which to settle. Such a determination would necessarily take into consideration the voluntary nature of the settlement.