Air France v Saks (Public International Law)

AIR FRANCE v SAKS 470 US 392  

Import: In case there is a conflict among "official texts", the language that is agreed by the parties as authoritative is followed.  

FACTS: 

Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention makes air carriers liable for injuries sustained by a passenger "if the accident which caused the damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking".  

Respondent Saks, while a passenger on AF's jetliner as it descended to land in Los Angeles on a trip from Paris, felt severe pressure and pain in her left ear, and the pain continued after the jetliner landed. Shortly thereafter, Saks consulted a doctor who concluded that she had become permanently deaf in her left ear.  

CALIFORNIA STATE COURT She then filed a suit in a California state court, alleging that her hearing loss was caused by negligent maintenance and operation of the jetliner's pressurization system.  

FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT After the case was removed to Federal District Court, petitioner moved for summary judgment on the ground that Saks could not prove that her injury was caused by an "accident" within the meaning of Article 17, the evidence indicating that the pressurization system had operated in a normal manner.  

Relying on precedent that defines the term "accident" in Article 17 as an "unusual or unexpected" happening, the District Court granted summary judgment to petitioner.  

COURT OF APPEALS The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the language, history, and policy of the Warsaw Convention and the Montreal Agreement (a private agreement among airlines that has been approved by the Federal Government) impose absolute liability on airlines for injuries proximately caused by the risks inherent in air travel; within the definition contained in Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation as meaning "an occurrence associated within the operation of an aircraft."  

ISSUE: WON Air France is liable to Saks  

HELD: CERTIORARI TO THE SC  

NO, the company is not liable.  

Liability under Art 17 arises only if a passenger's injury is caused by an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger, and not where the injury results from the passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operation of the aircraft, in which case it has not been caused by an accident under Art 17.  

(a) The text of the Warsaw Convention suggests that the passenger's injury must be so caused. The difference in the language of Article 17 imposing liability for injuries to passengers caused by an "accident" and Article 18 imposing liability for destruction or loss of baggage by an "occurrence", implies that the drafters of the Convention understood the word "accident" to mean something different than the word "occurrence."  

Moreover, Art 17 refers to an accident WHICH CAUSED the passenger's injury, and not to an accident which IS the passenger's injury.  

The text thus implies that, however "accident" is defined, it is the CAUSE of the injury that must satisfy the definition rather than the occurrence of the injury alone. And, since the Warsaw Convention was drafted in French by continental jurists, further guidance is furnished by the French legal meaning of "accident" - when used to describe a CAUSE of injury, rather than the EVENT of injury - as being a fortuitous, unexpected, unusual, or unintended event.  

(b) The above interpretation of Article 17 is consistent with the negotiating history of the Warsaw convention, the conduct of the parties thereto, and the weight of precedent in foreign and American courts.  

(c) While any standard requiring courts to distinguish causes that are "accidents" from causes that are "occurrences" requires drawing a line that may be subject to differences as to where it should fall, an injured passenger is only required to prove that some link in the chain of causes was an unusual or unexpected event external to the passenger. Enforcement of Article 17's "accident" requirement cannot be circumvented by reference to the Montreal Agreement. That Agreement while requiring airlines to waive "due care" defenses under Article 20(1) of the Warsaw Convention, did not waive Article 17's "accident" requirement. Nor can enforcement of Article 17 be escaped by reference to the equation of "accident" with "occurrence" in Annex 13, which, with its corresponding Convention, expressly applies to aircraft accident INVESTIGATIONS and not to principles of liability to passengers under the Warsaw Convention.