Claims Unlimited

The case was considered so important that the entire nine-man panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sat in on it. The question: If a passenger dies in an airplane crash, can his beneficiaries collect only the maximum damage claims allowed by the state in which the accident happened? In a decision that will profoundly affect insurance companies and airlines, the court said no by a six-to-three vote.

Involved in the ruling was a Northeast Airlines Convair that left New York's La Guardia Airport on Aug. 15, 1958, crashed while approaching Nantucket Island, Mass., and killed 25. One New York passenger's widow, Mrs. John S. Pearson, sued Northeast in a New York court, won $160,000. When the airline appealed, a three-judge federal panel upheld its claim that since the crash occurred in Massachusetts (where claims at the time were limited to $15,000), the case should have been tried there. But the full court, in a rehearing, reversed the decision. Said U.S. Judge Irving R. Kaufman, speaking for the majority: "Modern conditions make it unjust and anomalous to subject the traveling citizen of this state to the varying laws of other states through which they move." Judge Kaufman observed that air travelers may within a few hours "pass through several commonwealths." They may fly over states they never intended to cross, be aboard a plane that falters over one state and crashes in another. "The place of injury," said he, "becomes entirely fortuitous."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.