Court of Justice of the European Union. In 2019 in Niki,73 the CJEU, in this section also referred to as the ‘EU Court’, was asked to rule on this controversial issue. Following the burning of a passenger by a hot beverage during a flight, it had to give its own view of the term ‘accident’. The defendant contended that a cup of coffee falling from the folding tray table onto the passenger was not the ‘materialisation of a hazard typically associated with aviation’,74 which was necessary to be considered as an ‘accident’ in Austria. The EU Court, seized by the highest Austrian Court, ruled in favour of an extensive interpretation, holding that an ‘accident’ under the 1999 Montreal Convention ‘covers all situations occurring on board an aircraft in which an object used when serving passengers has caused bodily injury to a passenger, without it being necessary to examine whether those situations stem from a hazard typi- cally associated with aviation’.75 In doing so, the CJEU rejected the position adopted in Germany and in Austria, but did not clearly align itself with existing consensus in leading common law jurisdictions. While the EU Court appears to have put an end to the controversy regarding the need for a direct link with hazards associated with aviation, its reasoning was nevertheless confusing. First, while the EU Court recalled the importance of a uniform application of the 1999 Montreal Convention,76 it gave, with no reasoning, an initial gist of the term ‘accident’ that was quite distinct from the one commonly admitted in many jurisdictions. When the American Supreme Court referred to ‘unexpected or unusual event or happening’, the EU Court used the expression ‘unforeseen, harmful and involuntary event’77 in its reasoning, replacing the notion of ‘unusual’ by ‘involuntary’ yet kept by its Advocate General.78 This change does not have a clear explanation and could be understood as any voluntary harmful event being outside the scope of the Convention, which would appear surprising in a uniform strict liability regime. Second, while there was a general view to consider that the event must be external to the passenger,79 the EU Court, again without clear explanation, drafted its decisions in a way that could lead us to believe that death or injury resulting from the passenger’s health could trigger carrier liability,80 which in turn could only be exonerated therefrom pursuant to Articles 20 and 21 of said convention. 73 CJEU, 19 December 2019, GN v. ZU acting for Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx, C-532/18, E...
Court of Justice of the European Union. Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein shall recognise the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union over the Agency, as provided for in Article 24(2) and (4) of Regulation (EU) No 1077/2011.
Court of Justice of the European Union. Liechtenstein shall recognise the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union over the Support Office, as provided for in Article 45(2) and (4) of the Regulation.
