## Facts

- A British European Airways (BEA) Trident 1 jet, designed and manufactured by Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Ltd. (HSA), crashed shortly after takeoff from London Heathrow on June 18, 1972, killing all 112 passengers, including Hilde Benjamins.
- Hilde Benjamins’s ticket was purchased in Los Angeles and constituted “international transportation” governed by the Warsaw Convention because the United States and the United Kingdom were contracting parties.
- Abraham Benjamins, a Dutch citizen residing in California, sued in federal court as personal representative of Hilde’s estate on behalf of himself and their children.
- The complaint sought damages for wrongful death and baggage loss and relied primarily on Warsaw Convention Articles 17 (passenger death or bodily injury) and 18 (baggage loss).
- The district court dismissed, reasoning the Warsaw Convention did not itself create a cause of action and thus did not support treaty-based federal jurisdiction.
- The case was consolidated with other cases arising from the same crash.

## Issues

1. Whether the Warsaw Convention itself creates a cause of action for wrongful death and baggage loss arising from international air transportation, or instead merely supplies rules (e.g., presumptions, limits) to be applied to claims created by domestic law.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit reversed the dismissal.
- The court held that the Warsaw Convention creates a cause of action for claims within its scope, including passenger death under Article 17 and baggage loss under Article 18.
- The court rejected its earlier circuit precedent that had treated the Convention as not supplying an independent cause of action.

## Legal Principles

- The Warsaw Convention provides a direct treaty-based cause of action in U.S. courts for injuries covered by Articles 17 and 18 when the transportation is “international” within Article 1.
- The Convention is a substantive liability regime that supplies the conditions of liability, defenses, and limits, supporting uniform adjudication rather than dependence on varying domestic wrongful-death and tort statutes.
- Treaty interpretation should account for the Convention’s objective of international uniformity and the weight of foreign contracting-state practice, especially where the treaty’s text states that “the carrier shall be liable.”

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that, for international air carriage, the Warsaw Convention itself authorizes suit for passenger death and baggage loss and therefore permits federal courts to adjudicate such claims under a uniform treaty-based liability framework.


Benjamins v. British Eur. Airways, 572 F.2d 913 (2d Cir. 1978)