Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines

203 Citing cases

  1. Pearson v. Northeast Airlines, Inc.

    309 F.2d 553 (2d Cir. 1962)   Cited 77 times
    In Pearson, which arose from the same airplane tragedy that initiated the Kilberg litigation, we devoted considerable discussion to the possibility that a Statute of Limitations other than that of the place of injury might be applied.

    The judge ruled that plaintiff's recovery was not bound by the arbitrary limit of $15,000 provided by Chapter 229, section 2, of the Massachusetts General Laws. In so doing he relied on the holding of the New York Court of Appeals, in Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 (1961). The jury thereafter awarded damages well in excess of the statutory maximum and judgment was entered accordingly.

  2. Gore v. Northeast Airlines, Inc.

    373 F.2d 717 (2d Cir. 1967)   Cited 34 times
    In Gore v. Northeast Airlines (373 F.2d 717 [2d Cir., 1967]), the New York law was applied on a "contacts grouping" theory principally because the domicile of the decedent and his beneficiaries at the time of his death was in New York.

    WATERMAN, Circuit Judge. This action arises out of the same Northeast Airlines summer weekend flight from New York City to Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, with which this court became acquainted in the actions for wrongful death entitled Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 (1961), decided by the Court of Appeals of New York, and Pearson v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 309 F.2d 553, 92 A.L.R.2d 1162 (2 Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 372 U.S. 912, 83 S.Ct. 726, 9 L.Ed.2d 720 (1963), decided after the Kilberg decision by this court sitting in banc. Gordon Dean, plaintiff's decedent, was a prominent business executive who worked in New York City and resided there with his immediate family which consisted of his wife and their two small children, aged 4 and 2 respectively.

  3. Tramontana v. S.A. Empresa De Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense

    350 F.2d 468 (D.C. Cir. 1965)   Cited 62 times
    In Tramontana v. S.A. Empresa De Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense, supra, 350 F.2d 468, 472, the court in distinguishing Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34 [211 N YS.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526], pointed out that the New York court in Kilberg would have the same interest in providing full compensation for the death of one of its own citizens whether the commercial aircraft in which decedent was a passenger crashed in New York where the flight originated or in Massachusetts where the accident happened, stressing the fact that the place of the accident was "merely fortuitous."

    She points also the fact that only thirteen states still limit recovery for wrongful death, and that none imposes a ceiling as low as that contained in the Brazilian Air Code. She cites the Warsaw Convention, which governs generally accidents involving international air carriers and which now permits recovery up to $8,292, as constituting in essence an international standard of fairness in such matters. And, finally, she relies on the New York Court of Appeals decision in Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 (1961), as a persuasive precedent for the position she urges us to adopt. Another contention, which we treat separately hereinafter, is that the Brazilian limitation should be disregarded because of the striking decline which has taken place in the value of the cruzeiro in terms of the dollar.

  4. Miller v. Miller

    22 N.Y.2d 12 (N.Y. 1968)   Cited 203 times   1 Legal Analyses
    In Miller v Miller (22 N.Y.2d 12), as in Kilberg v Northeast Airlines (9 N.Y.2d 34), the prohibition of limitation on wrongful death recovery was found in the State's highest law, its Constitution.

    The Record of Debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1894 (Vol. 2, pp. 581-595, 651, 652, 947-962) indicates that the framers of the constitutional provision regarded the arbitrary limitation of $5,000 as absurd and unjust and that "this amendment was adopted for the benefit of the next of kin of the bread winner, persons who, in fact, sustained large pecuniary damage on account of the negligent act which removed the person and deprived dependents upon him of their substance, and which was not measured or recompensed by the sum awarded under the limitation. To such persons it is the evident purpose [of the amendment prohibiting the enactment of any legislation limiting recoveries in wrongful death actions] to authorize a recovery measured by the actual loss sustained". ( Medinger v. Brooklyn Hgts. R.R. Co., 6 App. Div. 42, 46-47; see, also, Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, 9 N.Y.2d 34.) It is obvious, merely in outlining the purpose of the New York prohibition against limitations on recovery, that this State is vitally concerned with the manner in which the wife and children of a New York decedent will be compensated for the economic loss they have suffered as a result of the wrongful killing of their "bread winner".

  5. Babcock v. Jackson

    12 N.Y.2d 473 (N.Y. 1963)   Cited 840 times   1 Legal Analyses
    In Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N.Y.2d 473, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279 (1963), the New York Court of Appeals completed a break which had been foreshadowed in Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 (1961), by abandoning the traditional lex loci delecti rule.

    Realization of the unjust and anomalous results which may ensue from application of the traditional rule in tort cases has also prompted judicial search for a more satisfactory alternative in that area. In the much discussed case of Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines ( 9 N.Y.2d 34), this court declined to apply the law of the place of the tort as respects the issue of the quantum of the recovery in a death action arising out of an airplane crash, where the decedent had been a New York resident and his relationship with the defendant airline had originated in this State. In his opinion for the court, Chief Judge DESMOND described, with force and logic, the shortcomings of the traditional rule (9 N.Y.2d, at p. 39):

  6. Barkanic v. General Administration of Civil Aviation of the People's Republic of China

    923 F.2d 957 (2d Cir. 1991)   Cited 94 times
    Reasoning that Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526, and its progeny have been superseded by Schultz: "[I]t appears to us that New York courts would now apply the Neumeier rules to all post-accident loss distribution rules."

    2. New York's Choice of Law Analysis. Appellants rely heavily on a line of cases beginning with Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 (1961), for the proposition that the law of the decedent's domicile governs the issue of damages in wrongful death cases. For the reasons set forth below, however, we conclude that Kilberg and its progeny are no longer good law, and that, under current law, New York courts would apply the law of the place of the accident under the facts presented here. Although we disagree with the district court's approach, then, we affirm its application of Chinese law.

  7. Rosenthal v. Warren

    475 F.2d 438 (2d Cir. 1973)   Cited 43 times
    Applying New York government interest analysis; New York forum would apply its own unlimited recovery rather than limitation of state of defendant where all tortious conduct occurred

    But cf. Conklin v. Canadian-Colonial Airways, Inc., 266 N.Y. 244, 194 N.E. 692, Id., 242 App.Div. 625, 271 N.Y.S. 1107 (1935) (New Jersey death limitation inapplicable to a New Jersey plane crash because the validity of a ticket stipulation for limiting the airline's damages is to be determined by New York law, where the ticket was purchased). In Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 172 N.E.2d 526, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133 (1961), however, the New York Court of Appeals characterized the Massachusetts wrongful death limitation as "procedural" and refused to apply it in a suit brought in New York by a New York decedent's estate arising from the crash of an airplane flight originating in New York but fatally ending at Nantucket, Massachusetts. The court said that "[m]odern conditions make it unjust and anomalous to subject the traveling citizen of this State to the varying laws of other States through and over which they move," and pointed out that there were only 14 states limiting death case damages as of that time. 9 N.Y.2d at 39, 211 N.Y.S.2d at 135, 172 N.E.2d at 527.

  8. Gore v. Northeast Airlines, Inc.

    222 F. Supp. 50 (S.D.N.Y. 1963)   Cited 4 times
    In Gore v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 222 F. Supp. 50 (S.D.N Y 1963), which also arose out of the Nantucket crash, the same District Judge who had presided in Pearson and Truath denied the plaintiff's motion to strike Northeast's affirmative defense based on the Massachusetts damage limitation.

    Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188; Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477. 9 N.Y.2d 34, 211 N.Y.S.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526. D.C., 199 F. Supp. 539, aff'd en banc, 2 Cir., 309 F.2d 553, reversing 2 Cir., 307 F.2d 131, cert. denied, 372 U.S. 912, 83 S.Ct. 726, 9 L.Ed.2d 720.

  9. Davenport v. Webb

    11 N.Y.2d 392 (N.Y. 1962)   Cited 44 times
    Treating prejudgment interest as substantive in wrongful death action

    Neither Maryland's wrongful death statute nor that State's case law authorizes the addition of prejudgment interest. These actions resulted in a verdict and judgment for plaintiffs, which judgment was subsequently amended, on motion, to include interest from the date of death, on the authority of Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines ( 9 N.Y.2d 34). Upon appeal, the Appellate Division unanimously modified the judgment by striking the addition of interest.

  10. In re Air Crash Disaster at Boston, Mass.

    399 F. Supp. 1106 (D. Mass. 1975)   Cited 52 times
    Noting that "[t]he policy underlying each statute is an important consideration in determining which state has the more significant connection with the issue"

    While it appears that the wording of Vermont's wrongful death statute, Ver.Stat.Ann. tit. 14, § 1491 (1974), is broad enough to encompass actions based on contracts, see W. Prosser, Law or Torts § 127 (4th ed. 1971), I rule that the choice of law rule applicable to these counts, which are essentially actions to recover damages for negligent conduct causing death, is the tort choice of law rule regularly applied in actions for wrongful death resulting from negligence. Griffith v. United Air Lines, Inc., 416 Pa. 1, 203 A.2d 796 (1964); Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 9 N.Y.2d 34, 311 N YS.2d 133, 172 N.E.2d 526 (1961); see Scott v. Eastern Airlines, 399 F.2d 14 (3 Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 979, S.Ct. 446, 21 L.Ed.2d 439. Delta's interpretation of this Court's function in diversity cases under the Erie doctrine is overly restrictive.