Unlimited Liability

On tickets issued by most U. S. air transport lines is a contract clause reading: "In the event of the injury or death of the holder due to any cause for which this company is legally liable, the company's liability is limited to" $5,000 or $10,000. A 1931 award set the precedent that all planes operating on regular advertised schedules are "common carriers" like railroads, just as liable as railroads for the death or injury of passengers. Hence in most States the clause is meaningless except in a few Western States which limit liability in case of death to $10,000 or less per person. But planes privately chartered like taxicabs to take passengers when & where they want to go have been exempt from this common carrier category. Best the relatives of the dead could do was sue on grounds of negligence, as did the relatives of 14 killed in a chartered Colonial Western Airways plane in 1929, collecting $86,000. Last week privately chartered planes became common carriers too. in a decision in Philadelphia's Federal Circuit Court of Appeals by Judge Joseph Buffington.

Three years ago C. William Glose, 32, vice president of Philadelphia's Airport Development & Construction Co., was killed in an airplane crash near Tampa. His wife and three children sued Curtiss-Wright Flying Service, Inc. for $200.000. A Newark District Court jury awarded her $56,000; the judge cut it to $40.000. Curtiss-Wright appealed on the grounds that: i) Mr. Glose had automatically limited damages to $10,000 by accepting the printed form ticket; 2) as the plane's sole passenger he had "chartered" it; and 3) there had been no negligence on the part of Pilot Percy C. Henry Jr. who was also killed when he tried to land his plane to avoid heavy fog immediately ahead.

Judge Buffington dismissed all this, ruled that a chartered plane is as much a common carrier as a regularly scheduled plane, a railroad train or a taxicab. He also denied to all common carriers the right to limit or dodge responsibility for passengers' death or injury in accidents. Lawyers took this to mean that private owners of planes transporting paying passengers are as liable as air transport companies.

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