Airlines Dealt Setback on Damage Claims

An evenly divided Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to shield airlines from paying interest on damages arising from crashes related to international travel.

By a 4-4 vote, the justices upheld a federal appeals court ruling that assessed what is now 10 years’ worth of interest on a judgment against Eastern Airlines stemming from a 1975 crash in New York.

Justice William J. Brennan took no part in the case, and the court’s one-sentence opinion sets no national precedent.

There remains the possibility that the court some day may again consider the same issue with all nine justices participating. The court’s brief opinion did not divulge which four justices voted for the airline and which four voted against it.

Crash Claimed 113

But Tuesday’s ruling is a setback for the airline industry.

The lawsuit against Eastern was filed by Robert F. Mahfoud on behalf of the three children of his brother, Bernard, and Bernard’s wife, Odile. The couple died in a June 24, 1975, crash at Kennedy International Airport that claimed 113 lives. The Mahfoud’s three children were not aboard.

Lawyers for Robert Mahfoud said the airline should be required to pay interest on the $150,000 judgment against it. But lawyers for Eastern said the airline’s liability was limited to $75,000 per deceased passenger under a 1929 treaty covering international air travel.

A federal judge in Louisiana ruled in 1982 that airlines should not, in effect, be allowed to reduce liability by investing money and then dragging out the resolution of a lawsuit for years.

That ruling was upheld last year by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The interest owed to the Mahfoud children under the appeals court ruling surpasses the $150,000 award.

The children also were awarded $1.5 million from the government because of negligence by air traffic controllers. That amount was not at issue in the Supreme Court case.

The 1975 flight was from New Orleans to New York, but, because the Mahfouds had been headed to Paris, the ill-fated flight was considered part of international travel as defined by the 1929 treaty.

The case had been under court study since Oct. 1, 1984. The justices last June 17 ordered the case re-argued, a sign that there was a deep division about how the case should be decided. It was re-argued last Oct. 9.