Mr Holmes was killed when the defendant’s aircraft in which he was a passenger crashed on a domestic flight in Bangladesh. As a domestic flight, it was not international carriage. The proper law of the contract was undoubtedly Bangladeshi law. Under Bangladeshi law the plaintiff’s damages would have been limited to andpound;913. But Mr Holmes’s widow sued in the United Kingdom, relying on the 1967 Order and its application to ‘all carriage of persons . . performed by aircraft for reward.’ She argued these words included foreign domestic flights.
Held: The airline’s appeal succeeded. Lord Bridge asked what modes of transport were regulated by the Hague Rules and said: ‘In authorising the application of such rules, based on or adapted from the Hague Rules, to non-Convention carriage by air, what categories of such carriage may Parliament have reasonably had in contemplation as the proper subject matter of United Kingdom legislation?’
Lord Griffiths said: ‘I can see no reason why our Parliament should wish to legislate to provide for domestic air law in Bangladesh any more than it would wish to legislate on road traffic or railway safety in Bangladesh and I do not believe that it intended it to do so.’
Judges:
Lord Bridge, Lord Griffiths
Citations:
[1989] AC 1112, [1989] 1 All ER 852, [1989] 2 WLR 481
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Disley v Levine (T/a Airtrak Levine Paragliding) CA 11-Jul-2001
The claimant sought damages from her instructor, after being injured as a passenger trainee pilot of a paraglider. He responded that she was out of time, since the regulations applied. His appeal was refused. The system of regulation did not mention . .
Cited – Laroche v Spirit of Adventure (UK) Ltd CA 21-Jan-2009
Hot Air balloon was an aircraft: damages limited
The claimant was injured flying in the defendant’s hot air balloon. The defendant said that the journey was covered by the 1967 Regulations and the damages limited accordingly. The claimant appealed against a decision that the balloon was an . .
Cited – Masri v Consolidated Contractors International Co Sal and Others HL 30-Jul-2009
The claimant sought to enforce a judgment debt against a foreign resident company, and for this purpose to examine or have examined a director who lived abroad. The defendant said that the rules gave no such power and they did, the power was outside . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Transport, Damages, Jurisdiction
Updated: 02 May 2022; Ref: scu.280079
