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On November 16, 1980, respondent Valerie Saks boarded an Air France jetliner in Paris for a 12-
hour flight to Los Angeles. The flight went smoothly in all respects until, as the aircraft
descended to Los Angeles, Saks felt severe pressure and pain in her left ear. The pain continued
after the plane landed, but Saks disembarked without informing any Air France crew member or
employee of her ailment. Five days later, Saks consulted a doctor who concluded that she had
become permanently deaf in her left ear.
Saks filed suit against Air France in California state court, alleging that her hearing loss was
caused by negligent maintenance and operation of the jetliner's pressurization system. App. 2.
The case was removed to the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
After extensive [470 U.S. 392, 395] discovery, Air France moved for summary judgment on the
ground that respondent could not prove that her injury was caused by an "accident" within the
meaning of the Warsaw Convention. The term "accident," according to Air France, means an
"abnormal, unusual or unexpected occurrence aboard the aircraft." Id., at 9. All the available
evidence, including the postflight reports, pilot's affidavit, and passenger testimony, indicated
that the aircraft's pressurization system had operated in the usual manner. Accordingly, the
airline contended that the suit should be dismissed because the only alleged cause of respondent's
injury - normal operation of a pressurization system - could not qualify as an "accident." In her
opposition to the summary judgment motion, Saks acknowledged that "[t]he sole question of law
presented . . . by the parties is whether a loss of hearing proximately caused by normal operation
of the aircraft's pressurization system is an `accident' within the meaning of Article 17 of the
Warsaw Convention . . . ." Id., at 30. She argued that "accident" should be defined as a "hazard
of air travel," and that her injury had indeed been caused by such a hazard
Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention establishes the liability of international air carriers for
harm to passengers. Article 18 contains parallel provisions regarding liability for damage to
baggage. The governing text of the Convention is in the French language, and we accordingly set
forth the French text of the relevant part of Articles 17 and 18 in the margin. 2 The official
American translation of this portion of the text, which was before the Senate when it ratified the
Convention in 1934, reads as follows:
"Article 17
"The carrier shall be liable for damage sustained in the event of the death or wounding of a
passenger or any other bodily injury suffered by a passenger, if the accident which caused the
damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of
embarking or disembarking.
"Article 18
"(1) The carrier shall be liable for damage sustained in the event of the destruction or loss of, or
of damage to, any checked baggage or any goods, if the occurrence [470 U.S. 392, 398] which
caused the damage so sustained took place during the transportation by air." 49 Stat. 3018-3019.
Two significant features of these provisions stand out in both the French and the English texts. First,
Article 17 imposes liability for injuries to passengers caused by an "accident," whereas Article 18 imposes
liability for destruction or loss of baggage caused by an "occurrence." This difference in the parallel
language of Articles 17 and 18 implies that the drafters of the Convention understood the word "accident"
to mean something different than the word "occurrence," for they otherwise logically would have used the
same word in each article. See Goedhuis, supra, at 200-201; M. Milde, The Problems of Liabilities in
International Carriage by Air 62 (Caroline Univ. 1963). The language of the Convention accordingly
renders suspect the opinion of the Court of Appeals that "accident" means "occurrence."
Second, the text of Article 17 refers to an accident which caused the passenger's injury, and not
to an accident which is the passenger's injury. In light of the many senses in which the word
"accident" can be used, this distinction is significant. As Lord Lindley observed in 1903
In Article 17, the drafters of the Warsaw Convention apparently did make an attempt to discriminate
between "the cause and the effect"; they specified that air carriers would [470 U.S. 392, 399] be liable if
an accident caused the passenger's injury. The text of the Convention thus implies that, however we define
"accident," it is the cause of the injury that must satisfy the definition rather than the occurrence of the
injury alone. American jurisprudence has long recognized this distinction between an accident that is the
cause of an injury and an injury that is itself an accident. See Landress v. Phoenix Mutual Life Ins. Co.,
291 U.S. 491 (1934).
While the text of the Convention gives these two clues to the meaning of "accident," it does not
define the term. Nor is the context in which the term is used illuminating. See Note, Warsaw
Convention - Air Carrier Liability for Passenger Injuries Sustained Within a Terminal, 45 Ford.
L. Rev. 369, 388 (1976) ("The language of Article 17 is stark and undefined"). To determine the
meaning of the term "accident" in Article 17 we must consider its French legal meaning. See
Reed v. Wiser, 555 F.2d 1079 (CA2), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 922 (1977); Block v. Compagnie
Nationale Air France, 386 F.2d 323 (CA5 1967), cert. denied, 392 U.S. 905 (1968). This is true
not because "we are forever chained to French law" by the Convention, see Rosman v. Trans
World Airlines, Inc., 34 N. Y. 2d 385, 394, 314 N. E. 2d 848, 853 (1974), but because it is our
responsibility to give the specific words of the treaty a meaning consistent with the shared
expectations of the contracting parties. Reed, supra, at 1090; Day v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.,
528 F.2d 31 (CA2 1975), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 890 (1976). We look to the French legal
meaning for guidance as to these expectations because the Warsaw Convention was drafted in
French by continental jurists. See Lowenfeld & Mendelsohn, The United States and the Warsaw
Convention, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 497, 498-500 (1967).

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On November 16, 1980, respondent Valerie Saks boarded an Air France jetliner in Paris for a 12-

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