Airplane Crash Attorneys
The Montreal Agreement

The Scarlett Law Group are National Trial Lawyers based in San Francisco, California with outstanding results in cases involving automobile accidents, airplane crashes, traumatic brain injury, head injury, personal injury, catastrophic personal injuries, mass torts, medical malpractice , professional negligence, class actions, civil rights, environmental disasters and wrongful death.

Under The Montreal Agreement, the airlines waived the defense provided them by Article 20(1) of the Warsaw Convention, and a higher limit of liability was imposed. Thus, the Montreal Agreement renders an airline absolutely liable up to $75,000 per passenger. Obviously, this is still a harsh restriction on those sustaining injury, or loss of a loved one, as a result of the wrongful conduct of an international carrier.

The Montreal Agreement is not an amendment to the Warsaw Convention, and does not apply to all accidents involving international transportation. The Agreement was signed by some 150 carriers, and takes force only when the international flight "includes a point in the United States of America as a point of origin, point of destination, or agreed stopping palace".

Providing some relief from the harsh liability limits afforded the carriers, the International Air Transport Association worked to form the International Inter-Carrier Agreement (IATA) which was a special contract drafted in accordance with Article 22(1) of the Warsaw Convention. This Agreement allows, by contract, the carrier and passenger to agree to a higher limit of liability.

Following IATA, certain signatory carriers reached agreement through Measures to Implement the Inter-Carrier Agreement, or MIA. Under the MIA, each carrier agreed that it would not invoke the limitation of liability in Article 22(1) of the Convention for recoverable compensatory damages arising under Article 17 of the Convention. Through further waiver of defenses under Article 20(1), the signatory carriers bound by the principle of strict liability for an amount up to $100,000 with Special Drawing Right.

The evolution of the law is ongoing. In their assertion of defenses, and with a more conservative judicial outlook, defenses continue to be set forth, despite that it cannot be seriously contended that a passenger was somehow responsible for the tragedy of a crash.