Supreme Court of the United States

United Airlines, Petitioner

v.
Wang Li Bo

Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court.

Plaintiff Wang Li Bo was struck while on a United Airlines flight.
The attacker was a fellow passenger. He sued United Airlines to recover
for the injury under the Montreal Convention, which makes air carriers
liable for passenger injuries caused by an accident. The United States
District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered a summary
judgment for Wang in an efficient opinion. On appeal, the Second Circuit
affirmed the district courts judgment in a lean per curiam opinion.We
affirmed.

Background
The facts was undisputed.On the evening of March 31, 2012, Wang Li
Bo boarded a United Airlines flight bound for John F. Kennedy Airport in
New York, NY from Beijing. Wang settled into his window seat in the
first-class cabin. Between him and the aisle of the Boeing 777 jet was one
seat immediately to his right, occupied by Joseph Brennan. Though
Wangs ticket indicated that he should be seated in seat 10B, he sat in seat
9B, since he supposed it didn't really matter .Brennan and Wang had
never met before.

Because Wang and Brennan were traveling first-class, a flight

attendant, Aaron Cross, routinely came around to offer complimentary
beverages and snacks. Wang ordered a diet coke while Brennan requested
a glass of red wine. The wine on this particular flight was part of a

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promotional package negotiated between Esser Vineyards and United
Airline. The vintage wine was a bit strong. Brennan downed his glass
quickly, and asked for another. Finishing his second glass just as fast,
Brennan continued to drink through the first two hours of the flight,
consuming four glasses in total. After the fourth glass, Brennan sought a
fifth, but was refused because flight regulations prevented the airline
from continuing to serve passengers showing signs of advanced
intoxication.

Outraged, Brennan cursed Cross, but did not pursue the issue
further. After about 10 minutes, Cross left his post in the galley and
entered the lavatory. Seizing this opportunity, Brennan leaped out of his
seat and scurried over to the unattended and unsecured beverage cart.
Brennan pulled out two small bottles of the Esser wine, drank them, and
hurriedly returned to his seat. Cross emerged from the lavatory, but did
not notice the theft.

Clearly drunk at this point, Brennan talked with Wang, asking him
whether he had seen the football match between Inter Milan and AC
Milan the night before. Brennan, a fan of Inter Milan, explained that AC
Milan won on a late goal and that he just had to drink away his
disappointment from losing to an inferior squad. Wang, coincidentally a
fan of AC Milan, couldnt help defending his favorite team. Wang pointed
his finger in the air and yelled, There is no more overrated team than
Inter Milan!!!! AC Milan forever!!!

Provoked by this insult and belligerently inebriated, Brennan

punched Wang in the face, bloodying his nose, and grabbed Wangs neck
with both hands, strangling him for five seconds before Cross could pull

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Brennan off and subdue him. Cross then handcuffed Brennan. He directed
Wang to an empty seat elsewhere in the cabin. As Wang stood up to move
to this new seat, he stumbled as he attempted to leave his window seat
and move to this empty seat, causing further injury.

After the plane landed in New York, Brennan was arrested and taken
to the local police station. Wang checked in to a local hospital and
received treatment.

Soon thereafter, Wang filed a complaint in the United States District

Court for the Eastern District of New York against United Airlines
seeking to recover damages under the Convention for the Unification of
Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (Montreal Convention).
That court entered a summary judgment for Wang in an efficient opinion.
The district court noted without explanation that the common plain
meaning of what is an accident was dispositive to the courts holding.
On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the district courts judgment in a
lean per curiam opinion. But the Second Circuit did note their perennial
confusion since Wallace v. Korean Air as to what test to apply in accident
cases.

Discussion
Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention sets forth the circumstances
under which a carrier may be liable to passengers on international flights:
The carrier shall be liable for damage sustained in the event of the
death or wounding of a passenger, if the accident which caused the
damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft or in the course of
any of the operations of embarking or disembarking.

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 An air carrier is liable to a passenger under the terms of the Warsaw
Convention only if the passenger proves that an accident was the
proximate cause of his injury. Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392,
396(1985).

Although the Convention itself does not define an accident, the

Supreme Court addressed the meaning of that term in Air France v. Saks:
We conclude that liability under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention
arises only if a passenger's injury is caused by an unexpected or unusual
event or happening that is external to the passenger. This definition
should be flexibly applied after assessment of all the circumstances
surrounding a passenger's injuries.

The present case was an accidentwithin the meaning of Article 17.

In Stephania v. Delta Air Lines, despite of Stephania's warning to the
flight attendants of Bala's intoxication, the flight attendants continued to
serve Bala alcoholic beverages.However, in this case, Cross refused to
provide Brennan with another glass for his showing signs of advanced
intoxication.In addition, unlike Stephania case, Cross immediately
subdued Brennan and relocated Wang to another place.There seems to be
no fault of the flight.

Professor Goedhuis, the Reporter at the drafting of the Warsaw

Convention, addressed precisely the issue at bar in his treatise on the
Convention:In the example ... in which a passenger is injured in a fight
with another passenger, it would be unjustifiable to declare the carrier
liable by virtue of article 17, because the accident which caused the
damage had no relation with the operation of the aircraft.

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 Nevertheless, in the case at hand, Cross departed from his post his
post in the galley and entered the lavatory, left the beverage cart
unattended and unsecured which is taken advantage by Brennan who then
stole two small bottles of the Esser wine. As is stated in Saks, any injury
is the product of a chain of causes, and it is only required that the
passenger be able to prove that some link in the chain of causation was an
unusual or unexpected event external to the passenger. Applying this test,
the court concluded that the Crosss leaving his post without locking the
beverage cart was an unexpected event external to the passenger and thus
qualified as an accident under Article 17.

In Saks, the Court addressed whether a passenger's loss of hearing

proximately caused by normal operation of the aircraft's pressurization
systemwas an accident. The Court concluded that it was not,
because the injury was her own internal reaction to the normal
pressurization of the aircraft's cabin.In constrast to Saks, after seriously
injuried by his fellow passangers, Cross directed Wang to an empty seat
elsewhere in the cabin. As Wang stood up to move to this new seat, he
stumbled as he attempted to leave his window seat and move to this
empty seat, causing further injury. The flight attendant did not take any
possible measure to prevent the further injury.

Unlike the routine and normal airline operations in Saks, the reseating
of Wang without any aid was an unexpected and perhaps even
unusual event, as Wang expected to receive some aids in his course to
the new seat and it is presumably common for the airline to aid the
injuried passanger to his seat.

Conslusion

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 For the reasons set forth above, we therefore affirmed the ruling of
the Second Circuit Court.
SO ORDERED.