Combe v. Continental Airlines, Inc.
In March 2006, in the middle of a divorce action, the plaintiff’s wife, who was the mother of their 2½ year-old daughter, secretly boarded a Continental Airlines flight with the child and flew from Kansas City, Missouri, to Houston, Texas, where they caught a one-way, connecting flight to Mexico City. In June 2006 a federal grand jury in Missouri indicted the wife on an international parental kidnapping charge. In March 2007 the father brought an action against Continental Airlines, accusing the carrier of negligence, breach of contract, and interference with custodial relations. The father claimed that Continental ignored its own regulations, which required a single parent traveling from the United States to Mexico with a minor child to provide a notarized letter from the other parent authorizing the trip.
Continental contended that The Warsaw Convention and The Montreal Convention preempted the father’s common law claims for negligence and interference with custodial relations. Further, The Warsaw Convention allows only for claims based upon an “accident,” and the complaint contained no allegation of an “accident” and, in fact, no “accident” occurred. Additionally, the father’s claims were for emotional and psychological distress, and The Warsaw Convention does not recognize a claim for purely emotional or psychological damages. Continental also contended that since the father was not a passenger on the flights and had no contract rights as a third-party beneficiary, the disclaimer of all third-party beneficiary claims contained in tariff provisions barred the alleged breach of contract asserted by the father. In addition Continental disputed the father’s allegations that Continental or the Mexican government had rules, regulations and/or practices of requiring notarized letters for a single parent traveling with a child on an International flight. Continental also disputed the allegations that Continental should have done more to prevent two properly ticketed passengers from flying on their designated flights. Plaintiff’s attorney stated that the suit may have been the first of its kind filed against a commercial carrier.
