## Facts

- An American Airlines flight traveling from LaGuardia Airport (New York) to Covington, Kentucky crashed in Kentucky on November 8, 1965, killing 58 of 62 people aboard.
- Multiple wrongful-death actions were filed against American Airlines in various jurisdictions arising from the same crash.
- A prior action (tried first to judgment) proceeded in federal court in Texas under Kentucky wrongful-death and negligence law; after a 19-day jury trial, American was found negligent and the judgment was affirmed on appeal.
- In New York, separate wrongful-death actions were brought by the administrators of decedents’ estates, including Landano and Kirchstein (and a related action by Hart); Boeing was also named as a defendant in Kirchstein’s action.
- American moved under CPLR 602(a) to have liability issues in the Landano and Kirchstein actions tried jointly with other pending New York crash cases.
- Landano and Kirchstein opposed consolidation and cross-moved for summary judgment on liability against American, arguing the prior federal judgment precluded relitigation of American’s negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether collateral estoppel bars American from relitigating liability for the crash in the Landano and Kirchstein actions based on the prior federal negligence verdict, even though those plaintiffs were not parties to the earlier case.
2. Whether, given issue preclusion, American was entitled to a joint trial on liability with other New York crash cases or whether liability should be resolved by summary judgment.

## Decision

- The court held American was collaterally estopped from contesting liability for the crash in the Landano and Kirchstein actions.
- The court granted Landano’s and Kirchstein’s cross-motion for summary judgment on liability against American.
- The court denied American’s motion to join or coordinate liability trials under CPLR 602(a) as to Landano and Kirchstein because liability was conclusively established for those actions.

## Legal Principles

- Under New York collateral estoppel, issue preclusion applies when (1) the identical issue was necessarily decided in a prior action and is decisive in the current action, and (2) the party to be bound had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue.
- Mutuality of parties is not required where the party to be bound previously litigated the identical issue fully and fairly; new plaintiffs may invoke the prior determination offensively against the defendant.
- A prior judgment may be preclusive where the earlier litigation was extensive and adversarial, and the defendant had a strong incentive to litigate (including where the judgment followed a lengthy jury trial and was affirmed on appeal).
- Speculative concerns about jury variation, forum effects, or the number of potential related claims do not defeat estoppel when the prior proceeding satisfies the identity-of-issue and full-and-fair-opportunity requirements.
- When liability is preclusively established, procedural devices aimed at trying liability (including consolidation of liability issues) are properly denied as to the estopped actions.

## Conclusion

The court applied New York’s modern collateral-estoppel test to hold that American Airlines, having fully and fairly litigated and lost the identical negligence issue in a prior federal crash trial under Kentucky law, could not relitigate liability in later New York wrongful-death suits brought by different plaintiffs; summary judgment on liability was entered for Landano and Kirchstein, and American’s consolidation request was denied.


Hart v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 61 Misc. 2d 41, 304 N.Y.S.2d 810 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Cnty. 1969)