OCTOBER TERM, 1998
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit
No. 97-475. Argued November 10, 1998—Decided January 12, 1999
Before plaintiff/respondent Tseng boarded an El Al Israel Airlines flight from New York to Tel Aviv, El Al subjected her to an intrusive security search. Tseng sued El Al for damages in a New York state court, asserting a state-law personal injury claim for, inter alia, assault and false imprisonment, but alleging no bodily injury. El Al removed the case to the Federal District Court, which dismissed the claim on the basis of the treaty popularly known as the Warsaw Convention. Key Convention provisions declare that the treaty "appl[ies] to all international transportation of persons, baggage, or goods performed by aircraft for hire," Ch. I, Art. 1(1); describe three areas of air carrier liability, Ch. III, Arts. 17 (bodily injuries suffered as a result of an "accident . . . on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking"), 18 (baggage or goods destruction, loss, or damage), and 19 (damage caused by delay); and instruct that "cases covered by article 17" "can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in th[e] [C]onvention," Art. 24. Tseng's claim was not compensable under Article 17, the District Court stated, because Tseng sustained no bodily injury as a result of the search, and the Convention does not permit recovery for solely psychic or psychosomatic injury (citing Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 U. S. 530, 552). That court further concluded that Tseng could not pursue her claim, alternately, under New York tort law because Article 24 shields the carrier from liability for personal injuries not compensable under Article 17. Reversing in relevant part, the Second Circuit concluded first that no "accident" within Article 17's compass had occurred. In that court's view, the Convention drafters did not aim to impose close to absolute liability for an individual's personal reaction to "routine operating procedures," which, although inconvenient and embarrassing, are the price passengers pay for airline safety. The court next concluded that the Convention does not shield the same routine operating procedures from assessment under the diverse laws of signatory nations (and, in the case of the United States, States within one Nation) governing assault and false imprisonment. Article 24, the court said, precludes resort to local law only where the incident is "covered" by Article 17, i. e., where there has been an accident, either on the plane or in the course of embarking or disembarking,
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