Summary
The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of claims seeking to impute an airplane pilot’s alleged negligence to the aircraft owners and fixed-base operators under the Federal Aviation Program. The court declined to imply a federal private right of action or impose strict liability on an owner-bailor absent negligence, agency, or aircraft defects. It held that any policy-based expansion of liability should be addressed by Congress.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Federal Aviation Program, including 49 U.S.C. § 1301(26), implies a private civil remedy imposing liability on an airplane owner-bailor for the negligent operation of a rented aircraft by the pilot.
- Whether the federal statutes or federal common law impose strict liability on an aircraft owner or lessor for passenger injuries when the owner-bailor was not negligent and did not control the aircraft.
- Whether the statutory treatment of aircraft owners and lessors, including 49 U.S.C. § 1404, demonstrates congressional intent to impose absolute liability for injuries caused by leased aircraft.
Holdings
- The Federal Aviation Program does not imply a private civil remedy imposing liability on an airplane owner-bailor for the pilot's negligent operation where the owner-bailor is not alleged to have been independently negligent or to have controlled the aircraft.
- The court would not fashion a federal common-law tort cause of action imposing strict liability on aircraft owners and lessors absent a demonstrated compelling federal interest and congressional intent.
- The exclusion of certain persons from liability for injuries on the surface of the earth under 49 U.S.C. § 1404 was intended to facilitate aircraft financing and does not imply that owners and lessors are absolutely liable for injuries to passengers of leased aircraft.
Key quotations
“Nothing in the Federal Aviation Program of 1958 or in the regulations justifies court implication of a private right of action anchored to the doctrine of strict liability against the owner-bailor of an airplane where no negligence exists.”
“Our response is that if Congress had intended to impose strict liability on an owner-bailor, it was capable of clearly and directly so providing.”
“We believe that to do so would constitute abusive judicial law-making.”
Factual background
McCord and Simon, California residents, were injured in an airplane crash in Utah on June 22, 1969. Pilot John L. Bury, who held a valid operating license, had rented the aircraft from Dixie Aviation Corporation and H. Bruce Stucki to transport the plaintiffs and died in the crash. The plaintiffs alleged negligent operation by the pilot but did not allege that the defendants controlled the flight, that the aircraft was defective, that the defendants were actively negligent, or that an agency relationship existed; the pleadings characterized the relationship as bailment.
Procedural history
McCord and Simon alleged that the negligence of the deceased pilot should be imputed as a matter of law to the aircraft owners under the Federal Aviation Program. The trial court dismissed the two causes of action, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed.