Court Opinion

ID: 9463538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:09:36.468103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:09.769546
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The majority recognizes that application of either the location-of-the-passenger test of MacDonald v. Air Canada, 439 F.2d 1402 (1st Cir. 1971), or the tripartite test of Day v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 528 F.2d 31 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 890, 97 S.Ct. 246, 50 L.Ed.2d 172 (1976), results in the same disposition: affirmance of the district court’s judgment and denial of recovery to plaintiff Maugnie. It is therefore plainly unnecessary in this case to resolve an important question concerning an international treaty. We ought not to be reaching out to do so.
But if choose I must, I would choose the MacDonald test. I agree with the district judge that that test is more in keeping with both a fair reading of the language of Article 17 and the Article’s historical derivation. See generally Note, Warsaw Convention— Air Carrier Liability for Passenger Injuries Sustained Within a Terminal, 45 Fordham L.Rev. 369, 370-76, 379-86 (1976). As the First Circuit just recently noted in Hernandez v. Air France, 545 F.2d 279 (1st Cir. 1976), aff’g 405 F.Supp. 154 (D.P.R.1975):
We are persuaded that the delegates [to the Warsaw Convention] understood embarkation and disembarkation as essentially the physical activity of entering or exiting from an aircraft, rather than as a broader notion of initiating or ending a trip.
at 283-284. Indeed, all
courts defining “disembarking” have consistently refused to extend the coverage of the Warsaw Convention to encompass injuries occurring within the terminal. The principle, announced in MacDonald and followed by the courts in Felismina [v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 13 Av.Cas. ¶ 117,145 (S.D.N.Y.1974)] and [In re] Tel Aviv [405 F.Supp. 154 (D.P.R.1975)], created a standard which emphasized the passenger’s location, thereby ending liability when the passenger has reached a “safe” point within the terminal.
Note, supra, 45 Fordham L.Rev. at 376.
The Day test, on the other hand, suffers from several serious flaws. First, the conclusions reached by Day, and by Evangelinos v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., No. 75-1990 (3d Cir. May 4, 1976), motion for rehearing en banc granted (June 3, 1976), which *1263follows Day, “rest upon a somewhat selective reading of the Warsaw minutes.” Note, supra, 45 Fordham L.Rev. at 380. In other words, the substantial portions of the legislative history favoring the location test, see id. at 380-81, were disregarded.
Second, the Day test is bottomed on a social theory of compensation designed to spread the burden of damages from travel to all travelers. By relying on this theory of social engineering, “the Day court clearly injected policy arguments alien to the spirit of the Warsaw convention when drafted in 1929.” Id. at 385. Moreover, it is not possible, in my view, to implement such a theory under the current terms of the Warsaw Convention without such a torturing of language as to constitute a redrafting. The court in Day, unfortunately, engaged in such contortions. If the signatories of the Convention wish to redraft it, they may do so, but the courts should not.
Finally, it seems clear to me that the Day test was designed to extend a right of recovery to persons for whom sympathy inspires a method of compensation. The Day test was meant to be plaintiffs’ law. Yet in many cases it may operate to thwart plaintiffs’ attempts to recover the full value of their claims. The Warsaw Convention is a two-edged sword: the basis of liability is strict but at the same time the amount recoverable is limited. See Mache v. Air France, [1968] D.S.Jur. 515 [1967] Revue Francaise de Droit Aérien 343 (Cour d’Appel, Rouen), aff’d, [1971] D.S.Jur. 373, [1970] Revue Francaise de Droit Aérien 311 (Cass. civ. 1re), where the plaintiff-passenger argued against the applicability of the Warsaw Convention in an effort to avoid its ceiling on recovery. Thus, even if it is accepted on its own terms, the Day test may have perverse and unintended consequences.
Accordingly, I concur only in the result.