## Facts

- Kuwait Airways Corporation owned and operated a Boeing 747 that was struck while parked at John F. Kennedy International Airport on May 29, 1984 by a catering truck owned and operated by Ogden Allied Aviation Services.
- Ogden admitted liability for the collision.
- The parties stipulated to damages for the actual repair costs and for costs incurred accommodating inconvenienced passengers.
- The aircraft was out of service for several days during repairs.
- Kuwait Airways did not rent a replacement 747; it covered the affected flights using an A300 Airbus in its fleet that was not otherwise engaged.
- Ogden presented evidence that no flights were canceled, passenger capacity needs were met, and Kuwait Airways suffered no lost profits (and may have benefited financially) during the 747’s grounding.
- The remaining dispute concerned damages for temporary loss of use of the 747.
- Kuwait Airways moved for partial summary judgment seeking to set loss-of-use damages as the reasonable rental value of a substitute 747 for the downtime.

## Issues

1. Whether an owner may recover loss-of-use damages for temporary deprivation of property despite not renting a substitute and despite avoiding lost profits through internal substitution.
2. Whether, on summary judgment, loss-of-use damages may be fixed as the reasonable rental value of a substitute 747 where the asserted value is derived from an economic model rather than an established short-term rental market.

## Decision

- The court held that loss-of-use damages are not categorically barred by the absence of an actual substitute rental or proof of lost profits.
- The court denied Kuwait Airways’ motion for partial summary judgment.
- The court ruled that the proper measure and amount of any loss-of-use award could not be determined as a matter of law because material factual disputes remained regarding the economic impact of substitution and the reliability of the plaintiff’s rental-value methodology.
- The question of loss-of-use damages was left for trial.

## Legal Principles

- Temporary deprivation of a chattel can be a compensable injury independent of out-of-pocket replacement costs or demonstrable lost profits.
- An owner’s ability to mitigate operational disruption by reallocating its own assets does not, by itself, eliminate entitlement to loss-of-use damages.
- Reasonable rental value may serve as a proxy for loss-of-use damages, but it is not automatic where no real rental market exists and the proposed figure depends on disputed modeling assumptions.
- Summary judgment is inappropriate where loss-of-use damages turn on contested facts concerning markets, costs, profitability comparisons, and opportunity costs.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that loss-of-use damages may be recoverable even when a substitute is not rented and profits are not shown to be lost, but it refused to set damages by a modeled “rental value” on summary judgment because the measure and amount depended on disputed factual and methodological questions requiring trial.


Kuwait Airways Corp. v. Ogden Allied Aviation Servs., 726 F. Supp. 1389 (E.D.N.Y. 1989)