Question:

Select a court case relating to the travel industry (hotels, airlines, etc.) It must be 5 pages, double spaced. Paper will explain what the case was about: 1. the facts, 2. the results, 3. whether there was an appeal, and 4. whether you agree/disagree with the decision. The CORE PORTION OF THE PAPER needs to be an explanation as to why you agree or disagree with the decision. Appellate cases are not allowed.

Answer:

Title: Legal Case Review

The facts about the case

The legal case under review in the present paper relates to the crash of Air France flight 447, which crashed in 2009. The Air France flight was headed to Paris from Rio de Janeiro disappearing off the radar and crashing into the sea. For months, investigators and divers searched to uncover evidence from the plane’s wreckage to piece together the events of the final moments prior to this historic tragedy. It was not until nearly two years later that they came up with some evidence.

Family members of the crash victims, in the interim, started mounting wrongful death lawsuits against several US companies, arguing that the parts of these companies were involved in the crash of the airline. The companies targeted by the 30 victims in the Dardengo and Guennoon actions include General Electric (G.E), Intel, and Honeywell. Wrongful death actions constitute a category of civil action where families of persons who have died in accidents or crashes sue on behalf of the estate of the decedent. These claims are always actionable by close members of the family, in most cases parents or spouses.

In any airline crash, at issue is normally which jurisdiction should be chosen for the commencement of the wrongful death action. In most instances, the crashes involve a pilot who comes from one country, many passengers from many different countries, and an airplane manufactured using parts sourced from different parts of the world. According to procedure rules, plaintiffs are required to file all their claims in the jurisdiction that holds ‘minimum contacts’ with each victim. However, it is normally very difficult to clearly ascertain these minimum contacts considering that there are numerous global variables have to be put into consideration.

Results of the case

This is the very problem that Judge Charles Breyer, a California federal district judge, faced before making his ruling. Judge Breyer ruled that the families who raised wrongful death actions against General Electric, Intel, and Honeywell (Dardengo and Guennoon plaintiffs) must do so by suing in France, since this is the country where the Air France flight 447 was manufactured. Even though most of the companies named in the suit were incorporated within the United States, the judge prohibited the victims from taking the lawsuit in California.

The attorney of the plaintiff expressed dismay at the ruling, arguing that it was absurd for the plaintiffs to be required to go to Europe in their quest for justice. The attorney felt that the ruling showed more concern with protecting corporations from liabilities arising from big payouts and monetary damages than with the convenience of the plaintiffs. In essence, the core argument in the case had to do with the provisions of the federal procedural rule relating to the concept of ‘inconvenient forum’, also known as Forum non conveniens (FNC). In this rule, the case ought to be transferred from its original area of jurisdiction upon the ascertainment of the feasibility of a more convenient location (Reynolds, 2010). Judge Breyer identified this location to be Paris, France. In arriving at this decision, the judge put into consideration the efforts that French authorities had made in carrying out the largest bulk of investigative work on the tragedy. Moreover, the French authorities had taken custody of the cockpit voice recorders and the Black Box.

Plaintiffs’ efforts to re-file the lawsuit

The plaintiffs undertook to circumvent this court decision by re-filing the suit against the three US manufacturers only, thereby choosing to omit all French defendants. Judge Breyer, for the second time, heard the motion by Dardengo and Guennoon plaintiffs, who again emphasized on their argument of forum non conveniens. For the second time, the judge denied the plaintiffs any reconsideration and granted dismissal of the lawsuit. In doing this, Judge Breyer declared that the US was not the ideal forum in the case’s context

Reasons why I agree with judge Charles Breyer’s decision

First, the judge was right in agreeing with the submission of the defendants that in re-filing the lawsuit and omitting all French defendants, the plaintiffs had created jurisdictional uncertainty, which they went on to complain about. Therefore, the plaintiffs could not rely on this uncertainty in efforts to defeat the court’s dismissal motion. Moreover, considering the available alternative, dismissal on the FNC argument was appropriate because there was still an available forum in France.

The second reason why the dismissal motion was appropriate relates to the plaintiffs’ decision not to mention French defendants. By so doing, the plaintiffs were trying to make France unavailable as a forum. In the case In re Compania Naviera Joanna S.A. of 2009, it was clearly stated that “no party should argue that an alternative forum is unavailable when this unavailability is a product of the purposeful conduct of the party” (Deng, 2010). In the Air France flight 447 case, the Dardengo and Guennoon plaintiffs chose to omit the French defendants in spite of the fact that in the previous suit, they had alleged them to be fully liable, and even in the re-filed lawsuit, they seemed to hold the French defendants partially responsible.

Thirdly, I also agree with ruling because it is not possible for the plaintiffs to re-file a lawsuit in the US with the aim of defeating an FNC that has previously been dismissed. Eighteen out of the 30 plaintiffs who re-filed the lawsuit were subject to the prior FNC dismissal order. Moreover, a further 7 plaintiffs had already filed cases in which they named French defendants by the time the first dismissal order of FNC was given. Therefore, upon consolidation of their actions into the multi-district litigation, they would have been subject to the dismissal order. In essence, there was a lack of any meaningful change of facts with regard to liability, something that was crucial in the process of justifying a change of parties. Instead, the plaintiffs ought to have pursued litigation in good faith in the foreign forum instead of contriving to defeat the jurisdiction of this forum.

Fourthly, throughout this litigation process, France remained available as a forum for litigation. Although no French court was going to hear the actions in the lawsuit as pleaded, the sheer ‘availability’ of such a court meant that a remedy existed. This ‘availability’ in no way translated into the ability by the plaintiff to bring the same Dardengo and Guennoon actions in the foreign forum in the US. The plaintiffs in this case would no doubt be able to have remedial actions undertaken in France, including actions against the US companies that comprise the defendants in the case. Instead of re-filing the suit that was dismissed in the US, the plaintiffs ought to have done so in France. This is because the requirement that the plaintiffs should name all the additional parties could not be viewed as onerous considering that they had identified them previously regarding the same matter.

The fifth reason is that in a French court, it would not be possible for the Dardengo and Guennoon actions to be sua sponte dismissed. A sua sponte dismissal occurs when a court decides to dismiss its own motion (Miller, 2002). The Sua sponte issue is a crucial one considering the fact that the defendants were willing to submit to a French court. In this case, under US law, the plaintiffs would be under the obligation to stop contesting French jurisdiction. This would be the condition under which an FNC dismissal would be effected. Moreover, in light of the provisions of French Code of Civil Procedure (Article 92) the plaintiffs could not authoritatively convince the US court that a sua ponte dismissal order would be given by any French appellate court against the Dardengo and Guennoon actions. In this way, it is clearly evident that France is an available forum for the lawsuit.

Conclusion

The case filed by family members of the victims of crash of Air France flight 447 represents a scenario in which there was a bid to artificially manipulate the potential for multiple forums to be available for resolving disputes that transcend national boundaries. This bid was rejected by a US court, and this paper has highlighted the various reasons why the judge’s decision was the right one, even after the re-filing of the lawsuit. For instance, it was clear that by re-filing the lawsuit, the plaintiffs had created jurisdictional uncertainty. Moreover, the plaintiffs were trying to make France unavailable as a forum, yet the country remained a source of remedy and an available forum for litigation.

 

References

Deng, H. (2010) Failing To Reach the “Harbour” of the U.S. Limitation Fund: The Fourth Circuit Allows a Party To Dismiss Its Own Limitation Action on Forum Non Conveniens Grounds in Compania Naviera Joanna SA v. Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster NV, Tulane Maritime Law Journal, 34(3), 591-683.

Miller, B. (2002) Sua Sponte Appellate Rulings: When Courts Deprive Litigants of an Opportunity to be Heard, San Diego Law Review, 1253(39), 203-392.

Reynolds, W. (2010), Proper Forum for a Suit: Transnational Forum Non Conveniens and Counter-Suit Injunctions in the Federal Courts; Texas Law Review, 70(4), 1663-1732.