Andrews v. United Airlines
24 F.3d 39 (1994)
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Rule of Law:
A common carrier's duty of utmost care may require it to do more than simply warn passengers of a known hazard if other, feasible safety measures could be implemented to reduce the risk of serious injury.
Facts:
- Billie Jean Andrews was a passenger on a United Airlines flight.
- After the plane arrived at the gate, a briefcase fell from an overhead storage compartment and seriously injured her.
- The identity of the person who opened the bin and the exact cause of the briefcase falling were unknown.
- United Airlines was aware of the risk, having received 135 reports of items falling from overhead bins in a single year prior to this incident.
- In response to these prior incidents, United had implemented a policy of making a verbal announcement warning passengers to use caution when opening the overhead bins.
- An expert for Andrews testified that this warning was ineffective and that feasible alternatives, such as installing restraining nets, were used by other airlines and could have prevented the hazard.
Procedural Posture:
- Billie Jean Andrews filed a diversity lawsuit against United Airlines, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for personal injuries.
- United Airlines moved for summary judgment, arguing it had not breached its duty of care.
- The district court granted summary judgment for United Airlines, dismissing Andrews's case.
- Andrews, as plaintiff-appellant, appealed the dismissal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a common carrier airline necessarily satisfy its heightened duty of care to passengers by providing a verbal warning about the risk of items falling from overhead bins, where there is evidence the airline knew of prior incidents and that more effective safety measures were available?
Opinions:
Majority - Judge Kozinski
No. A common carrier airline's verbal warning does not, as a matter of law, satisfy its heightened duty of care to protect passengers from the known hazard of falling baggage. Given a common carrier's duty of utmost care, even a small risk of serious injury may create liability if that risk could be eliminated through reasonable means. Andrews presented sufficient evidence—including the airline's awareness of 135 prior incidents and expert testimony on the feasibility of safety nets—for a reasonable jury to conclude that United Airlines failed to do all that 'human care, vigilance, and foresight reasonably can do under all the circumstances.' Because United did not demonstrate that alternative measures like netting would be prohibitively expensive or impractical, the question of whether the airline breached its duty is a matter for a jury to decide, making summary judgment inappropriate.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the heightened standard of care applicable to common carriers, clarifying that passive warnings may be insufficient to discharge their duty when active safety measures are feasible. It makes it more difficult for carriers to obtain summary judgment in negligence cases involving known hazards by arguing that a warning alone is sufficient. The ruling encourages carriers to proactively adopt new safety technologies to mitigate foreseeable risks, shifting the determination of reasonableness from the judge to the jury in cases where a plaintiff presents evidence of viable, alternative safety measures.
