Court Opinion

ID: 9492938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:53:47.454223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:33.721476
License: Public Domain

-KEARSE, Circuit'Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. As indicated in the air waybill, the cargo at issue in the present case was to be carried from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. It is true that the waybill did not describe Taipei as a “stopping placet],” Warsaw Convention Art. 8(c), in haec verba. However, in Brink’s Ltd. v. South African Airways, 93 F.3d 1022 (2d Cir.1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1116, 117 S.Ct. 959, 136 L.Ed.2d 845 (1997), this court determined that Article 8(c)’s requirement that the waybill “contain .... the agreed stopping places” could be satisfied by the waybill’s reference to the air carrier’s published timetables. We interpreted Article 8(c) in a common-sense fashion, ruling that the stopping places were adequately disclosed because (a) the international character of the journey was clear from the face of the waybill, (b) the waybill listed the number of the flight on which the goods were to be carried, and (c) the carrier’s timetables identified that flight’s scheduled stops between the goods’ point of origin and their destination. 93 F.3d at 1035.
*71We .... noted that incorporation of readily available timetables provides a shipper with sufficient notice of the international character of the flight, thereby realizing the drafters’ purpose in including the agreed stopping places in the air waybill.... Accordingly, we held that an air waybill that incorporates readily available timetables satisfies Article 8(c)’s requirement that the air waybill “contain” the “agreed stopping places” and does not deprive the air carrier of limited liability protection under Article 9.
Tai Ping Insurance Co. v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 94 F.3d 29, 32 (2d Cir.1996) (discussing Brink’s).
I see no meaningful difference between this case and Brink’s. Here, the international character of the goods’ journey was clear. The waybill identified Los Angeles as the place of the goods’ departure and Hong Kong as their destination. With respect to stopping places, the waybill stated, in pertinent part, that “[t]he agreed stopping places .... are those places, except the place of departure and the place of destination .... shown in the carrier’s timetables as scheduled stopping places for the route.” The waybill stated that the cargo would be carried on China Airlines Flight No. CI317. And the carrier’s timetables showed that Flight 01317 was a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Taipei. Thus, the necessary inference was that the goods would stop in Taipei.
The majority distinguishes this case from Brink’s on the ground that the information provided here was not “complete” because it did not reveal how the goods would be transported from Taipei to Hong Kong. Yet the majority also indicates that if the waybill here had simply designated Taipei as a “stopping place” in haec verba without any information as to how the goods would be transported from Taipei to Hong Kong, that would have sufficed to satisfy Article 8(c). However, in the latter instance the shipper would have known no more than it did here, namely that its goods were starting off for Hong Kong on a flight that went only to Taipei. In my view, in light of our ruling in Brink’s that the carrier’s timetables are to be taken into account, the revelation here that the goods could not get to Hong Kong on Flight CI317 and must stop in Taipei should also suffice.
I am not persuaded that Tai Ping Insurance Co. v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., requires a different result. In that case, we reasoned that the incorporation of timetables was insufficient because the “waybill includéd incorrect information regarding the date of departure. Without the correct date of departure, the shipper could not refer to the timetables to ascertain the stopping places.” 94 F.3d at 33. “Thus, although the waybill referred to readily available timetables, the timetables referred to did not apply to the transportation of Tai Ping’s shipment.” Id. at 32-33. We concluded that “a reference to timetables on a date other than the date of shipment does not effect an incorporation of regularly scheduled stops on the date of shipment.” Id. at 33. Simply put, if the carrier wishes to rely solely on waybill-plus-timetable to provide disclosure as to stopping places, it is incumbent on the carrier not to deviate from the information shown in those documents. However, there was no such deviation in the present case.
In sum, I would reverse the judgment in the present case, given the rulings in Brink’s that “[a]n air waybill that refers the shipper to readily available timetables provides sufficient information to notify the shipper of the agreed stopping places,” 93 F.3d at 1035, and in Tai Ping that if the carrier’s incorporation by reference to readily available timetables “effectively reveals the agreed stopping places,” that incorporation “satisfies Article 8(c)’s requirement that the waybill ‘contain’ the agreed stopping places.” 94 F.3d at 32. The waybill in the present case disclosed the international character of the flight and, together with the carrier’s readily available timetables, it “effectively” — indeed neces*72sarily — revealed Taipei as a stopping place simply by reason of the fact that, on the flight that was accurately listed, the goods destined for Hong Kong could go nowhere other than Taipei.