Cour de cassation, First Civil Division, April 14, 2021, n°19-22.236

Montréal Convention of 1999 for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air
Warsaw Convention of October 12
1929. Amended 1955
Bruxelles 1 Bis 1215/2012.

28 of the Warsaw Convention
17 of Montreal

France

Cour de cassation, First Civil Division

Ms. Anne-Marie Batut

On December 28, 2014, an International Carriage by Air with a departure point in Indonesia and a destination in Singapore suffered an in-flight incident and crashed into the sea. The result was the death of all of the passengers and staff. Through a civil liability claims the victims’ rights holders turned against a series of actors linked to the theft. These include the airline Air Asia (Indonesian company), the owner of the aircraft, Doric (German company), the manufacturer Airbus (French company), and the supplier Artus (French company). A guaranteed claim against the transporter company has been filed by the supplier. The question asked as to the jurisdiction deal with the claims of the rights holders relating to the Indonesian company. These rights holders criticize a disjunction which they consider contrary to the good administration of justice and to the European principles of the civil procedure. They also invoke the indivisibility of the aircraft as such, which would result in a manifest incompatibility of breaking up the litigation between different jurisdictions. The appeal claims the application of the criteria of plurality of co-defendants to join the Indonesian airline to the French proceedings.

That it follows from this text that the planned amount of compensation due by the carrier in the event of destruction, loss or damage to checked baggage does not constitute a fixed amount but a maximum, so that the traveler must establish the reality, within this limit, of the damage suffered, the burden of proof being reversed when a special declaration of interest has been made;