Where to Sue When You Are Injured on an International Flight

There are fewer stressful things imaginable than being injured in a foreign country. For the vast majority of us, we probably are just visiting rather than living. We may or may not speak the language, and we almost certainly do not know all of the laws or legal customs. Then, there’s the added stress of dealing with a foreign country’s medical system, including their own insurance and payments system. And all of this is in addition to the just ordinary stresses of being injured and dealing with insurance companies.

One small silver lining in all of this is that if you were injured on an international flight, including boarding or deplaning, some of the rules are simplified.

First, a bit of history. In the early days of commercial air travel, many countries and carriers realized that it was not particularly practical to have different rules when you take off in one country and land in another regarding legal damages. Thus was born the Warsaw Convention, originally signed in 1929 and then amended in 1955. This treaty, ratified by most of the world, created unified standards on many issues involving liability for damages related to flying. In 1999, most of the world came together and updated these standards, which is known as the Montreal Convention. This is the rule in most of the world.

There are a lot of interesting rules that come out of this Convention, but the one I want to focus on in this article is jurisdiction. This means the place where you are allowed to bring a lawsuit for damages. The Montreal Convention gives 5 potential places where you, as an injured person, can bring a lawsuit:

(1)    The home of the airline carrier

(2)    The principal place of business of the airline carrier (if different)

(3)    The place where the ticket was purchased

(4)    The final destination on the booking

(5)    The principal and permanent residence of the passenger (assuming the carrier or a contracted affiliate fly there)

So what does this mean? If you booked a ticket on a commercial ticketing website in Seattle, Washington for a flight to Thailand, with a layover in the UAE, and are injured when the plane has a rough landing in Bangkok, you do not need to go hire a Thai lawyer to sue. Because you booked your ticket in Seattle, you can sue in the United States. Bonus points, if your home is in Seattle, WA, you qualify under two bases.

This is a big deal because it makes thing considerably more manageable for injured people.  You do not need to go to a new country to litigate for your rights; you can do so right in your home country. If you wanted to, you have the option to sue in Thailand, but for most people, it makes more sense to sue in their own home country.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for aviation injury claims. If you are injured on any flight (international or domestic) you should seek legal counsel immediately, like an attorney at the Herrmann Law Group.

Anthony Marsh is a Principal Attorney at Herrmann Law Group. He has handled dozens of aviation personal injury cases, settling for millions of dollars against some of the nation’s biggest airlines and manufacturers. His phone number is 206-457-4204 and email is anthony@herrmannlawgroup.com