Langadinos v. American Airlines, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 99-1120

GREGORY LANGADINOS,

Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC.,

Defendant, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Nancy Gertner, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Lipez, Circuit Judge,

Coffin and Campbell, Senior Circuit Judges.

Anthony R. Bott for appellant.

Tory A Weigand, with whom Gary W. Harvey and Morrison, Mahoney

& Miller were on brief for appellee.

January 6, 2000

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge. Gregory Langadinos appeals from

the district court's order dismissing his amended complaint against

American Airlines, Inc. ("American"). The amended complaint

alleges that American violated the Warsaw Convention by continuing

to serve alcohol to an intoxicated passenger who then assaulted

Langadinos. American filed a motion to dismiss for failure to

state a cause of action, arguing, inter alia, that the Warsaw

Convention count was based on unsubstantiated, conclusory

allegations. The district court granted the motion to dismiss,

pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). We vacate and remand.

I.

"In the Rule 12(b)(6) milieu, an appellate court operates

under the same constraints that bind the district court, that is,

we may affirm a dismissal for failure to state a claim only if it

clearly appears, according to the facts alleged, that the plaintiff

cannot recover on any viable theory." Correa-Martinez v.

Arrillaga-Belendez, 903 F.2d 49, 52 (1st Cir. 1990); see also

Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-48 (1957). In making this

determination, we must accept the well-pled facts of Langadinos's

amended complaint as true and indulge every reasonable inference in

his favor. See Rogan v. Menino, 175 F.3d 75, 77 (1st Cir. 1999).

We state the facts, therefore, as Langadinos alleges them.

On June 13, 1996, Langadinos boarded an American Airlines

flight in Boston, bound for Paris. A few hours after take-off,

Langadinos approached a flight attendant for aspirin. The flight

attendant ignored Langadinos, and continued with her current chore:

spoon-feeding ice cream into the mouth of passenger Christopher

Debord. As Langadinos waited, Debord "stared in a conspicuous and

strange fashion" at him and whispered something into the flight

attendant's ear.

Later in the flight, Langadinos went to the lavatory.

While he waited in line, Debord forcefully grabbed Langadinos's

testicles, causing "excruciating pain." Then, Debord grabbed

Langadinos's hand and pulled it to his own groin. Although

Langadinos reported the assault to the flight crew, he was

unsatisfied with their response. The flight attendant who had fed

Debord ice cream commented, "Chris is my friend; he is harmless."

Despite the promise of a second crew member to have Debord arrested

upon arrival in Paris, the alleged assailant was not detained.

Langadinos filed a two-count complaint against American

in the district court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging

a common law tort and a breach of the Warsaw Convention. Before

American responded, Langadinos filed an amended complaint,

identical to the original in every respect but one: it included the

additional allegation, made on information and belief, that

American served alcohol to Debord just prior to the assault,

knowing that he was intoxicated and that his behavior was "erratic"

and "aggressive."

Rather than answer the amended complaint, American filed

a motion to dismiss for "failure of the pleading to state a claim

upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12 (b)(6). The

district court dismissed the complaint in a margin order, "based on

the arguments in defendant's motion and memorandum." On appeal,

Langadinos argues that the district court erred in dismissing count

two of the amended complaint, which alleges a violation of the

Warsaw Convention. We agree.

II.

A. Requisites of a Warsaw Convention Claim

Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention sets forth the

circumstances under which an international air carrier may be

liable for injuries to passengers. It provides:

The carrier shall be liable for damage

sustained in the event of death or wounding of

a passenger or any other bodily injury

suffered by a passenger, if the accident which

caused the damage so sustained took place on

board the aircraft or in the course of any of

the operations of embarking or disembarking.

(emphasis added). Although the Warsaw Convention does not define

the term "accident," the Supreme Court shed light on its meaning in

Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392 (1985). The Court ruled that an

injury to the plaintiff's ear caused by the normal operation of the

cabin pressurization system was not an "accident" within the

meaning of the Warsaw Convention. See id. The Court held that

"liability under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention arises only if

a passenger's injury is caused by an unexpected or unusual event or

happening that is external to the passenger." Id. at 405. When the

aircraft operates in a "usual, normal, and expected" manner, a

passenger is unable to recover. Id. at 406.

The Supreme Court's definition of "accident" is broad

enough to permit recovery for torts committed by fellow passengers.

Indeed, the Saks Court cited lower court decisions recognizing

passenger-on-passenger torts as "accidents" for the proposition

that the accident requirement must be "flexibly applied." Id. Of

course, not every tort committed by a fellow passenger is a Warsaw

Convention accident. Where the airline personnel play no causal

role in the commission of the tort, courts have found no Warsaw

accident. See, e.g., Potter v. Delta Airlines, 98 F.3d 881, 883-84

(5th Cir. 1996) (finding no "accident" where injury in passenger

dispute over seat position took place without involvement of

airline personnel), abrogated on other grounds by El Al Israel

Airlines, Ltd. v. Tseng, 525 U.S. 155 (1999); Stone v. Continental

Airlines, 905 F. Supp. 823, 827 (D. Haw. 1995) (finding no

"accident" where one passenger punched second passenger). On the

flip side, courts have found Warsaw accidents where airline

personnel play a causal role in a passenger-on-passenger tort.

See, e.g, Schneider v. Swiss Air Transp. Co., 686 F. Supp. 15, 17

(D. Me. 1988)("accident" when plaintiff injured by fellow

passenger's refusal to put seat upright because plaintiff was

denied assistance by flight attendant).

Langadinos's claim survives under these standards. He

has alleged that (1) Debord appeared intoxicated, aggressive and

erratic, (2) American was aware of this behavior and (3) despite

this awareness, American continued to serve him alcohol. Serving

alcohol to an intoxicated passenger may, in some instances, create

a foreseeable risk that the passenger will cause injury to others.

Indeed, the Supreme Court cited a case of this type as an example

of the flexible operation of the accident requirement. See Saks

470 U.S. at 405 (citing Oliver v. Scandinavian Airline Sys., 17 CCH

Av. Cas. 18,283 (Md. 1983) (Warsaw accident liability where airline

served alcohol to drunken passenger, who then fell and injured

fellow passenger)).

Of course, Langadinos cannot prevail simply by proving

that American served Debord excessive alcohol. He will also have

to establish that he suffered a compensable injury and that

American's service of alcohol to the assailant was a proximate

cause of his injury. See Saks, 470 U.S. at 406 ("Any injury is the

product of a chain of causes, and we require only that the

passenger be able to prove that some link in the chain was an

unusual or unexpected event external to the passenger.").

Recognizing that we can affirm the dismissal of the complaint only

"if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of

facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations," Hishon

v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984), we are not able to say,

at this stage in the proceedings, whether American bears causal

responsibility for the alleged assault. Moreover, the Warsaw

accident determination should be "flexibly applied after assessment

of all the circumstances surrounding a passenger's injuries." Saks,

470 U.S. at 405 (emphasis added). In this case, discovery will be

required before such an assessment can be made.

B. Defects in the Pleading

American argues that even if serving excessive alcohol to

a passenger can create a Warsaw accident, Langadinos pled this

allegation with such generality that we should not credit it in

reviewing the decision to dismiss his complaint. The allegation of

over-serving is crucial, American contends, because Langadinos is

unable to state a Warsaw Convention "accident" claim without it.

We agree with American that Langadinos's complaint could

not survive without a properly pled allegation of over-serving.

Other than the service of alcohol to Debord, Langadinos has not

alleged any action by American that even arguably led to his sexual

assault. Langadinos's claim that American flight attendants were

rude to him and that they "spoon-fed" ice cream to Debord does not

affix American with causal responsibility for an assault.

Likewise, Langadinos's claim that the American crew treated him

poorly after the incident does not demonstrate that they played any

role in its cause. Without the allegation of over-serving,

therefore, American could not bear any causal responsibility for

Langadinos's injuries and there would be no Warsaw Convention

accident.

We disagree with American, however, that the charge of

over-serving was pled defectively. Langadinos alleged the

following in paragraph 17 of the amended complaint:

On information and belief, just prior to

the aforesaid Mr. Debord's above-described

assault and battery upon Mr. Langadinos

[American] served intoxicating liquors/

intoxicants to said Mr. Debord and not

withstanding his aggressive and erratic

behavior and his evident state of diminished

cognitive and physical capacity continued to

serve Mr. Debord intoxicants, thereby

foreseeably generating otherwise unnecessary

risk of harm to all other passengers of Flight

No. 146 . . . . Upon information and belief,

[American] continued to serve Mr. Debord

alcohol, knowing that he was

intoxicated . . . .

American asks us to disregard this allegation because it relies on

words and phrases like "erratic," "aggressive," and "diminished

cognitive and physical capacity," which American argues are

conclusory. In particular, American says that Langadinos failed to

describe precisely the conduct of Debord that was "erratic" or

"aggressive" or that demonstrated his "diminished capacity."

American demands from Langadinos more detail in his

complaint than the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require. The

pleading rules

do not require a claimant to set out in detail

the facts upon which he bases his claim. To

the contrary, all the Rules require is 'a short

and plain statement of the claim' that will

give the defendant fair notice of what the

plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which

it rests. The illustrative forms appended to

the Rules plainly demonstrate this.

Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47-48 (1957). While defendants may

prefer highly detailed factual allegations, a generalized statement

of facts is adequate so long as it gives the defendant sufficient

notice to file a responsive pleading. See id.; see also Garita

Hotel Ltd. Partnership v. Ponce Fed. Bank, 958 F.2d 15, 17 (1st Cir.

1992).

We have demanded greater factual detail in a complaint in

a few specific categories of cases. For example, we have followed

Rule 9(b)'s requirement that "[i]n all averments of fraud or

mistake, the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake shall be

stated with particularity." See Powers v. Boston Cooper Corp, 926

F.2d 109, 111 (1st Cir. 1991). Recognizing that charges of

discriminatory intent are difficult to disprove and can greatly harm

a defendant's reputation, we have required civil rights plaintiffs

to "outline facts sufficient to convey specific instances of

unlawful discrimination." Dartmouth Review v. Dartmouth College,

889 F.2d 13, 16 (1st Cir. 1989). We have also demanded greater

factual specificity for allegations of RICO violations, see Miranda

v. Ponce Fed. Bank, 948 F.2d 41, 44 (1st Cir. 1991), and allegations

of standing, see United States v. AVX Corp., 962 F.2d 108, 115 (1st

Cir. 1992). Apart from these "specialized areas not implicated here,

it is enough for a plaintiff to sketch an actionable claim by means

of 'a generalized statement of facts from which the defendant will

be able to frame a responsive pleading.'" Garita Hotel Ltd.

Partnership v. Ponce Fed. Bank, 958 F.2d 15, 17 (1st Cir. 1992)

(footnote omitted) (quoting 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal

Practice & Procedure 1357 (1990)). Langadinos has met this

standard, putting American on notice that it is accused of serving

alcohol to an aggressive, erratic, and incapacitated passenger, even

though it knew he was intoxicated.

American repeatedly reminds us that Langadinos only

alleged the over-serving of alcohol in his amended complaint on the

basis of information and belief. A plaintiff may rely, however, on

an amended complaint, see, e.g., Chongris v. Board of Appeals, 811

F.2d 36, 38 (1st Cir. 1987), and, as American concedes, a plaintiff

can make allegations either on the basis of personal knowledge or

on "information and belief." Langadinos's attorney is entitled to

include such "information and belief" allegations in the complaint

as long as he had a good faith basis for doing so, based on the

reasonable inquiry that Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b) requires.

III.

For the reasons stated above, we conclude that Langadinos

has stated a valid claim under the Warsaw Convention. We therefore

VACATE the district court order dismissing the claim and REMAND for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.