Delta flight beverage cart injury lawsuit time-barred

The claims of an airline passenger who was injured when he was struck on the knee by a runaway beverage cart midflight were time barred because the man’s home state of Connecticut had the most significant relationship to the parties and the incident, a U.S. District judge has decided.

Judge Margaret R. Guzman insisted on making a rare choice-of-law determination at an early stage of the proceedings in Ricci v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., because the question of whether Massachusetts’ three-year statute of limitations for negligence actions or Connecticut’s two-year statute of limitations applied could settle the fate of the plaintiff’s claims.

When dealing with this specific choice-of-law issue, Massachusetts courts apply the so-called “functional approach” outlined by the Supreme Judicial Court in the 1995 case New England Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Gourdeau Constr. Co., which in turn drew upon §142 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, Guzman noted.

Under that approach, Massachusetts’ own statute of limitations would apply unless maintenance of the claim would serve no substantial interest of Massachusetts and the claim would be barred under the statute of limitations of a state having a more significant relationship to the parties and the occurrence.

In support of his argument that Connecticut did not have the more significant relationship with the parties and the occurrence, the plaintiff principally cited the SJC’s 2004 decision in Nierman, et al. v. Hyatt Corporation.

Guzman agreed that Nierman was “highly instructive” but found that “its teachings actually cut strongly in favor of a finding that Connecticut has the more significant relationship with the parties and the occurrence in this case.”

In Nierman, a Massachusetts woman was injured when a Texas hotel employee accelerated a transport cart in which she was sitting. While Massachusetts had a general interest in ensuring its residents are compensated for personal injuries suffered in another state, its interest in the timeliness of such an action was not more compelling than that of Texas, the SJC concluded.

Guzman looked at whether the negligence claim of the plaintiff in Ricci “would advance a substantial forum interest” of Massachusetts and “would not seriously impinge upon the interests of other states.”

Just as in Nierman, the judge concluded that Massachusetts’ general interest in having its residents compensated for personal injuries in other states did not supersede Connecticut’s interest.

The 17-page decision is Lawyers Weekly No. 02-121-25.

An issue to evaluate early

Because Massachusetts courts will often defer to the state with the most significant relationship to the occurrence, lawyers need to evaluate the interests of competing jurisdictions before filing, especially when a shorter limitations period may apply elsewhere, Boston attorney J. Nathan Cole said.

“This is particularly true in transportation-related injuries because where the plaintiff’s trip begins and ends has a huge influence on applicable law,” he said.

Cole said he has defended cases against plaintiffs injured mid-journey and, in those situations, there is inevitably a fight about whether the departure jurisdiction’s law applies instead of the law where the incident may have occurred.

We see more and more judges applying a negligence statute of limitations if the underlying allegations involve a breach of duty rather than a specific contract.

“Choice-of-law rulings can make or break a case,” he said. “Evaluating these issues early has to be part of case strategy.”

Even attorneys who typically represent plaintiffs said it was hard to find fault with Guzman’s analysis of which state had the “dominant interest,” given that most of the facts pointed to Connecticut.

Although the plaintiff was technically working out of his company’s Massachusetts office, giving him some contact with the state, “those contacts are not sufficient to outweigh Connecticut’s substantial relationship with [the plaintiff] and to the occurrences that led to his incident, having all started with departing on that Delta flight from Connecticut,” said Patricia J. Rezendes of Braintree.

Similar issues often come up in employment cases involving remote work, Matthew J. Fogelman of Newton said, noting he always argues that where the employee is situated is what matters.

“The same logic applies here,” he said. “Where [the plaintiff] lives and works is almost the end of the analysis.”

Cole credited Guzman for her insistence on addressing the choice-of-law issue so early in the case.

“Most courts are hesitant to address choice-of-law at the beginning stages of a litigation, but doing so can save time and resources when the statute of limitations or substantive law varies between states,” he said.

Clever attorneys may try to frame claims as breach of contract instead of negligence to avoid shorter statutes of limitations, but courts will look to the true nature of the claims, as Guzman did in Ricci, Cole added.

“We see more and more judges applying a negligence statute of limitations if the underlying allegations involve a breach of duty rather than a specific contract,” he said.

Here again, Guzman seems to have made the right decision, Fogelman said.

“Just because you call something an apple does not make it an apple if it’s an orange,” he said.

Neither the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Adam J. Combies and Stephanie Rodriguez-Ruiz, nor defense counsel, Emily D. Amrhein and Kathleen M. Guilfoyle, all of Boston, responded to requests for comment.

Runaway beverage cart

Plaintiff Michael Ricci, a Connecticut resident, began working as a vice president of project management at Texas company Catalyze Holdings in June 2019.

Post-pandemic, Ricci worked remotely from his home in Connecticut but was technically assigned to Catalyze’s regional office in Massachusetts.

In July 2021, Ricci told his supervisor that he needed to go to Tennessee to take a continuing education class. Catalyze paid for Ricci’s airline tickets and expenses associated with the trip, which included a layover in Georgia during his outbound flight.

On the flight to Georgia, Ricci fell asleep in an aisle seat. About 30 to 40 minutes after takeoff, a beverage cart came free, rolled down the center aisle, and struck his right knee. The Delta flight crew provided him with an ice pack.

Upon landing, Ricci boarded his connecting flight to Tennessee and, after landing, sought treatment at an urgent care facility, where he was diagnosed with bursitis.

After returning home to Connecticut, Ricci initially sought treatment from his physician and then an orthopedic specialist at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital in Massachusetts. But after transferring medical providers, the rest of his treatment and physical therapy, including a right knee excision prepatellar bursectomy, occurred in Connecticut.

After Ricci filed a two-count complaint for negligence and breach of contract in Superior Court in Massachusetts, Delta removed it to U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on diversity grounds.

At an initial scheduling conference, Guzman determined that the choice-of-law issue might be dispositive and asked the parties to engage in limited discovery and motion practice to resolve the matter.

Ricci then filed a motion seeking the application of Massachusetts law to the case, arguing that his negligence claim arose under Massachusetts law, with Delta countering that it arose under Connecticut law.

Guzman noted that it appeared Ricci was arguing that Delta had waived any argument that his breach-of-contract claim arose under some law other than Massachusetts by not raising it in its answer. But Guzman found no such waiver, as Delta had directly briefed the issue in its sole responsive pleading to Ricci’s motion.

Four key facts

Four undisputed facts buttressed Guzman’s decision that Connecticut had the “dominant interest” in having its statute of limitations applied. The plaintiff lived in Connecticut at the time of the alleged incident, and he was working remotely from his house in Connecticut at the time.

Guzman gave “very little weight” to the fact that the plaintiff was assigned to his company’s Massachusetts field office, explaining that she was much more interested in where he actually did his work.

In addition, the plaintiff had sustained his alleged injury on a flight that had departed from a Connecticut airport. Guzman said she would not credit “conjecture” about which state’s airspace the passenger jet was over when the alleged accident happened, noting that a comment to §145(2) of the Restatement called for the application of the law from the state where a train had originated, instead of a state that the train had passed through only for a short distance.

Finally, the plaintiff had also received significant treatment, physical therapy and surgery related to his alleged injury in Connecticut.

“This factor is particularly important here since it is conceivable that doctors and other medical staff that treated Plaintiff could be called to testify, in addition to his medical records being at issue,” Guzman wrote.

Having dismissed the plaintiff’s negligence claim, Guzman had to decide whether his second claim, which his attorney had styled as a breach of contract claim, was time-barred as well.

The threshold question was whether the claim “actually sounds in negligence,” Guzman said. If so, Connecticut’s two-year statute of limitations would apply to this claim as well.

Ricci had neither cited nor attached any purported contract to the complaint, though he did present the court a copy of “terms and conditions” contained in the Delta flight receipt, Guzman noted.

“However, it is not for the Court to read these terms and conditions and determine if they plausibly support a breach of contract claim,” Guzman wrote.

The substance of the complaint provided further evidence that “breach of contract” was a misnomer for the claim. The complaint read that when Ricci purchased his ticket, the agreement between the parties “implied” that he would arrive safely at his destination, Guzman said.

The complaint continued that Delta “through its own negligence” had failed to transport the plaintiff to his destination free from injury.

A 2001 Connecticut Supreme Court decision, Gazo v. City of Stamford, reinforced the conclusion that “simply naming a cause of action a breach of contract does not magically produce a breach of contract claim,” the judge said.

Demonstrating the existence of a valid contract is an essential element of proving a breach of contract claim under Massachusetts law, Guzman added by way of example.

She concluded that because the plaintiff’s second count “sounds in negligence,” Connecticut’s two-year statute of limitations applied, and the second claim was time-barred, too.