Marjorie Zicherman, Etc., et al. v. Korean Air Lines Co., LTD. (516 U.S. 217)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 16, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 516 U.S. 217 · 116 S. Ct. 629
- Decided
- January 16, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. This action presents the question whether, in a suit brought under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention governing international air transportation, Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air, Oct. 12,1929,49 Stat. 3000, T. S. No. 876 (1934) (reprinted in note following 49 U. S. C. App. § 1502 (1988 ed.)), a plaintiff may recover damages for loss of society resulting from the death of a relative in a plane crash on the high seas. I On September 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight KE007, en route from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea, strayed into air space of the Soviet Union and was shot down over the Sea of Japan. All 269 persons on board were killed, including Muriel Kole. Petitioners Marjorie Zicherman and Muriel Mahalek, Kole’s sister and mother, respectively, sued respondent Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd. (KAL), in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Petitioners’ final amended complaint contained three counts, entitled, respectively, “Warsaw Convention,” “Death on the High Seas Act,” and “Conscious Pain and Suffering.” At issue here is only the Warsaw Convention count, in which petitioners sought “judgment against KAL for their pecuniary damages, for their grief and mental anguish, for the loss of the decedent’s society and…
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