Innovative interpretations of the Articles of the Warsaw Convention on the part of both Federal and State courts in the United States are neither rare nor, perhaps, remarkable. Examples have frequently been documented in this Quarterly of a judicial approach to the treaty which reflects a desire in so far as possible to shield the travelling consumer from restrictions on his common law right to full indemnity for loss or damage sustained during carriage by air. Some treaty constructions adopted in pursuit of this objective have clearly been far removed from the intentions of the draftsmen who created the instrument in the 1920s. However, the antiquity of the Convention and the attainment of adulthood—if not middle age—by the airline community are frequently cited as a justification for treating the Convention text with a “liberal” reserve, if not actual contempt.

While 50-year old legislation may merit rigorous review the fact remains that the Warsaw Convention is a piece of international legislation enacted, by various means, into the municipal legislative structure of those countries that have ratified the treaty. Review should therefore be a matter for legislators rather than the courts.

The link between the respective roles of these two arms of authority in the U.S. has often been the subject of comment in Warsaw cases as defence interests have endeavoured to resist the more extreme demands of plaintiffs for “liberal” construction of the Convention text.

However, recent decisions of two Federal Appellate Courts with high reputations for authoritative judgment on Warsaw Convention matters will, in the coming months, concentrate close attention on the extent to which judicial amendment or truncation of treaty law is permissible.

Both of the cases in question concern appeals in actions previously reported upon in this journal and both relate in different ways to the fundamental principle of limited liability—the benefit accorded the infant airline industry in 1929 in return for a strict standard of liability, not dependent upon proof of negligence.

It was on Aug. 24, 1982, that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rendered its opinion in Causey v. Pan American World Airways Inc. (82 Daily Journal D.A.R. 2470) on appeal from the District Court for the Central District of California. As discussed in [1979] 2 LMCLQ (p. 181 et seq.), the action arose out of a fatal crash to a Boeing 707 in Bali as it made a night approach to land on Apr. 22, 1974. The Trial