## Facts

- Trishan Air, Inc. (Trishan) purchased a Falcon corporate jet associated with Dassault Falcon Jet Corporation and related Dassault entities (Dassault).
- The aircraft later crashed, causing substantial loss to Trishan tied to the damaged aircraft and resulting financial harm.
- Trishan sued in federal court under California law, asserting strict products liability and breach of express and implied warranties based on alleged defects and warranty breaches connected to the aircraft.
- Under California law, the warranty and strict-products-liability theories were treated as functionally equivalent, alternative ways to plead the same basic product-defect liability for the crash-related loss.
- The district court instructed the jury to compare fault between the parties and apportion damages.
- The jury found Trishan 70% responsible for the crash and awarded damages on the breach-of-warranty claims that were reduced in line with that fault allocation, resulting in a $3.5 million award.
- Trishan appealed, arguing comparative fault should not reduce recovery on breach-of-warranty claims; Dassault also challenged the judgment in its favor, including the warranty verdict.

## Issues

1. Under California law, may a plaintiff’s comparative fault reduce damages awarded for breach of express and implied warranties in a products case arising from a plane crash?
2. Did the district court properly treat strict products liability and warranty theories as sufficiently comparable to permit comparative-fault apportionment for the crash-related loss?
3. Was the evidence and trial record sufficient to sustain the breach-of-express-warranty judgment despite Dassault’s challenges?

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment.
- The court held the district court properly applied comparative fault to reduce Trishan’s breach-of-warranty recovery in accordance with the jury’s 70% fault allocation.
- The court accepted the district court’s approach treating California warranty and strict-products-liability theories in this setting as alternative routes to the same basic liability for the product-related loss, making fault apportionment appropriate.
- The court rejected Dassault’s challenges to the express-warranty verdict and left the reduced $3.5 million warranty judgment in place.

## Legal Principles

- Under California law in products-defect litigation, breach-of-warranty and strict products liability may operate as equivalent, alternative methods of pleading the same core theory of responsibility for product-caused loss.
- When warranty and products-liability theories function as substitutes for the same crash-related harm, comparative-fault apportionment may be applied to reduce a plaintiff’s warranty damages in proportion to the plaintiff’s responsibility for the occurrence.
- Appellate courts will uphold a jury’s breach-of-express-warranty finding where the record supports the existence of an express warranty, breach, and resulting damages, and no reversible error is shown.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a $3.5 million reduced warranty judgment after a Falcon jet crash, holding that California comparative-fault principles could be used to apportion and reduce damages on Trishan’s breach-of-warranty claims where warranty and strict products liability were treated as alternative theories for the same product-defect loss, and it declined to disturb the express-warranty verdict.


Trishan Air, Inc. v. Dassault Falcon Jet Corp., 532 F. App'x 784 (2013)