Opinion ID: 266961
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limitation on Liability

Text: 12 After Judge Wyatt denied defendant's motion to dismiss, and declined to make the ruling that would have enabled defendant to appeal the interlocutory order at once, 28 U.S.C. 1292(b), the case proceeded to trial before Judge Palmieri and a jury. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiffs, but limited the damage award to the maximum provided by the Warsaw Convention. 13 The Warsaw Convention controlled the question whether defendant could be liable for damages resulting for the death from the crash of its aircraft (Article 17) and it also determined the standard of conduct. Liability would attach unless defendant proved either that it took all necessary measures to avoid the accident or that it was impossible to take such measures (Articles 17 and 20). The jury found that defendant failed to prove this. 14 Plaintiffs' primary concern was to avoid the limitation of damages imposed by Article 22 of the Convention. Plaintiffs argued that the carrier was precluded from availing itself of the Convention's limitation on liability because, 2 first, the accident was caused by the 'wilful misconduct' of the carrier (Article 25), secondly, the passenger ticket was never delivered to decedent (Article 3(2)), and thirdly, even if the ticket was in fact delivered to decedent, it was never adequately delivered to him as required by Article 3(2). 3 The jury decided that plaintiffs had failed to prove that there was 'wilful misconduct' on the part of the carrier and that plaintiffs had failed to prove that no ticket was ever delivered to the decedent. The damage award was therefore confined to the limitation of the Warsaw Convention. We are of the opinion, however, that as a matter of law the delivery of the ticket was not adequate and that the limitation on damages of the Convention is inapplicable. 15 We read Article 3(2) to require that the ticket be delivered to the passenger in such a manner as to afford him a reasonable opportunity to take measures to protect himself against the limitation of liability. Such self-protective measures, could consist of, for example, deciding not to take the flight, entering a special contract with the carrier, or taking out additional insurance for the flight. The Convention specifically provides that 'the carrier and passenger may agree to a higher limit of liability' (Article 22(1)) and there would be little reason to make this provision, to require that the ticket state that the liability of the carrier is limited (Article 3(1)(e)), and to require that such a ticket be delivered to the passenger unless the Convention also required that the ticket be delivered in such circumstances as to afford the passenger a reasonable opportunity to take these self-protective measures. The delivery requirement of Article 3(2) would make little sense if it could be satisfied by delivering the ticket to the passenger when the aircraft was several thousand feet in the air. The specific language of Article 3(2), making the limitation on liability unavailable 'if the carrier accepts a passenger without a passenger ticket having been delivered,' lends substantial support to our position. This position is not necessarily inconsistent with Ross v. Pan American Airways, Inc., 299 N.Y. 88, 97 85 N.E.2d 880, 885, 13 A.L.R.2d 319 (1949), which merely held that the limitation on liability does not depend 'for its existence and validity on express assent thereto by the passenger.' That case did not decide whether the ticket must be delivered in such a maner as to provide the passenger with a reasonable opportunity to take self-protective measures. Compare also Grey v. American Airlines, Inc., 227 F.2d 282 (2 Cir. 1955), cert. denied, 350 U.S. 989, 76 S.Ct. 476, 100 L.Ed. 855 (1956), affirming 95 F.Supp. 756 (S.D.N.Y.1950). 16 Whether the ticket was delivered to the passenger in such a manner as to afford him a reasonable opportunity to take self-protective measures depends in each case on the particular factual circumstances. It is a test that is to be applied by the jury on the evidence before it. We are of the opinion, however, that a jury could not have reasonably found that the delivery of the ticket to the decedent, Lieutenant Mertens, was adequate and we therefore hold as a matter of law that the delivery was inadequate and that the limitation of liability of the Warsaw Convention is inapplicable. 17 The testimony of defendant's own ticket dispatcher at the Base was the only evidence presented on the question of delivery, as the crew and the other passenger on the plane were killed. The ticket dispatcher testified that the ticket was delivered to Lieutenant Mertens only after he had boarded the plane; that the material Lieutenant Mertens was accompanying under military orders was already loaded on the plane; and that, at the time of delivery, the aircraft was parked on the ramp about ready to take off. We also base our conclusion on the fact that presumably Lieutenant Mertens would have disobeyed orders if he left the material unaccompanied by disembarking after receiving the ticket to, for example, obtain flight insurance; and that the statement concerning the limitation of liability was printed in such a manner as to virtually be both unnoticeable and unreadable, especially in an aircraft about to take off. Under all these circumstances it could not be said that Lieutenant Mertens had a reasonable opportunity to take any measures to protect himself against the limitation of liability, regardless of the fact that the measures available to him might have been circumscribed because he was a military courier. 18 We therefore vacate the judgment below, which was based on the view that the limitation of liability of the Warsaw Convention is applicable and which awarded plaintiffs the Convention's maximum, $8,291.87. On remand it is only necessary to have a new trial on the issue of the amount of damages. Judge Palmieri wisely submitted this case to the jury with special interrogatories, Rule 49(b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and there is no reason why the jury's answers to the interrogatories establishing defendant's liability should be disturbed. The error of law we find relates only to the amount of damages, and there is no basis for believing that this error infected any other aspect of the jury's verdict. If any assessment of defendant's culpability is necessary to determine the amount of damages under the applicable law, see infra p. 858, the jury's answers to certain other interrogatories should be sufficient. The jury specifically found that defendant had failed to take all necessary measures to avoid the accident and that it was not impossible to take such measures, but that this dereliction did not amount to wilful misconduct. 19 Nothing in this opinion should be interpreted as necessarily implying that because the limitation of damages of the Convention is inapplicable, there can be no limitation upon the damages plaintiffs may be entitled to. Conceivably a concerned jurisdiction might, quite independently of the Convention, impose a limitation on the amount of damages recoverable for a wrongful death; and then the question would have to be faced whether the limitation on damages by the Convention is the exclusive limitation on damages for death caused by the crash of an aircraft during a flight covered by the Convention. Cf. Ass'n of the Bar of The City of N.Y., The Warsaw Convention as Amended by the Hague Protocol, 26 J. Air L. & Com. 255, 261 (1959). However, apparently none of the jurisdictions 4 that might possibly be concerned with this issue have rules limiting the amount of recovery, and there is thus no need to resolve that question now. Nor is there any need to determine which law governs if a conflict developed, compare Pearson v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 309 F.2d 553, 92 A.L.R.2d 1162 (2 Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 372 U.S. 912, 83 S.Ct. 726, 9 L.Ed.2d 720 (1963). But seemingly some choice of law must be made regarding the issue as to which items of damage can be properly included in the award for example, whether Lieutenant Mertens' parents could recover for their mental pain and anguish as well as their pecuniary loss. It seems clear that the Warsaw Convention left this issue, as it did other issues, such as who are the proper beneficiaries of a damage award, to the internal law of the parties to the Convention, see Komlos v. Compagnie Nationale Air France, 209 F.2d 436 (2 Cir. 1953), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 820, 75 S.Ct. 31, 99 L.Ed. 646 (1954), affirming 111 F.Supp. 393, 401 (S.D.N.Y.1953). The parties and district court below have uncritically assumed, in accordance with the systematics of the first Restatement on Conflict of Laws that this issue is to be controlled by the law of the place of accident (Japan), ibid. Without passing judgment on this issue, since it will presumably be reconsidered on remand, it will suffice to note that under Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941), the federal diversity court below is to follow the New York rules on conflict of laws, 5 and that Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N.Y.2d 473, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279, 95 A.L.R.2d 1 (1963), has ushered in a new regime for conflict of laws for New York, at least. Under this new mode of analysis it might well turn out that the law of the jurisdiction where the aircraft crashed should not govern the issue as to which items or types of damage could be recovered by plaintiffs. 20 The order denying defendant's motion to dismiss is affirmed, the judgment below is vacated, and the case is remanded for a new trial on the issue of damages.