Schopenhauer v. Compagnie Nationale Air France

Leonard Schopenhauer (plaintiff) used a travel agency to book a flight with Compagnie Nationale Air France (Air France) (defendant) that went from New York to Paris to Cotonou, Benin and then back through Paris to New York. The travel agency gave Schopenhauer a paper book of tickets. Each ticket included a place to handwrite baggage-check information, a detachable boarding-pass stub, and a notice that the Warsaw Convention applied. Schopenhauer checked five bags and then attempted to board the New York-to-Paris flight with a sixth bag that contained approximately $70,000 in electronics and jewelry that Schopenhauer intended to sell in Benin. A flight attendant told Schopenhauer to check the bag and gave Schopenhauer a limited-release tag for checking it. The limited-release tag did not mention the Warsaw Convention, and the sixth bag did not arrive in Paris. On the Paris-to-Benin flight, two of Schopenhauer’s other bags were damaged and looted. The missing, sixth bag was returned to Schopenhauer weeks later, without most of its original contents. Schopenhauer sued Air France in a New York federal court for losses relating to all three bags. Air France moved to (1) dismiss the claim for the two bags damaged on the Paris-to-Benin flight for lack of jurisdiction and (2) limit its liability for all three bags to the $20-per-kilogram limit specified in the Warsaw Convention. Schopenhauer did not dispute that the liability limit applied to the two bags damaged on the Paris-to-Benin flight but opposed the other requests.