CJEU Interprets Meaning of "Accident" in Montreal Convention 1999 [1]
On December 19, 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its judgment [3] in Case C-532/18 Niki Luftfahrt concerning the meaning of "accident" under the 1999 Montreal Convention [4] for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air. The EU signed the Convention on December 9, 1999, and it entered into force there on June 28, 2004. According to a press release [5] issued by the Court, the case, which was referred to the CJEU by the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof), involved a woman who was scalded from hot coffee which spilled on her for "unknown reasons." The Austrian airline argued that the term "accident" required a hazard associated with flight. The CJEU said that "[t]he ordinary meaning given to the concept of 'accident' is that of an unforeseen, harmful and involuntary event" (para 35) and pointed, moreover, to the purpose of the Montreal Convention, which was to "lay down a system of strict liability for air carriers" (para 36). Thus, the CJEU concluded that the Convention was not limited to hazards associated with aviation. It held that, "the concept of 'accident' . . . covers all situations occurring on board an aircraft in which an object used when serving passengers has caused bodily injury to a passenger, without it being necessary to examine whether those situations stem from a hazard typically associated with aviation" (para 43). The case will return to the Austrian Supreme Court for a final judgment.