Aviation

• Author: International Law Group

Numerous Portuguese plaintiffs brought an action in California state court against China Airlines, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, the Boeing Company, and others, after a crash by a China Airlines plane in Hong Kong had killed three and injured several others. The flight was on a round trip from Portugal to the far east and return. It had scheduled stops in London, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. Defendants removed the case to federal court on the basis of alienage. Plaintiffs, however, moved to remand to state court for lack of complete diversity -- both plaintiffs and China Airlines being foreign.

The district court concluded that plaintiffs had fraudulently joined China Airlines only because they could not have filed their damage claims against China Airlines in the U.S. under the Convention for the Unification of certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air, October 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000, 3020-21, T.S. No. 876, 137 L.N.T.S. 11 (The Warsaw Convention).

The district court, therefore, denied the motion to remand, and dismissed China Airlines with prejudice. Plaintiffs later dismissed the "other" defendants whom they had not been able to serve pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a)(1)(i). They also stipulated to the dismissals of defendants McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, leaving no defendants in the action. Plaintiffs appealed, claiming error (1) in the district court's denial of their motion to remand to state court, and (2) in the dismissal of China Airlines for lack of jurisdiction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirms.

The Court points...