In the previous issue of this journal [1981] 2 LMCLQ 296 consideration was given to a decision of the New York Supreme Court on the subject of passenger ticket delivery (Robyn G. Haggard et al v. Pan American World Airways Inc. (430 NYS 2d 486). It will be recalled that Judge Egeth dismissed the defendant’s plea that it was entitled to limit its liability under the Warsaw Convention as amended with respect to burn injuries sustained by a victim of a terrorist attack on a Pan American aircraft at Rome on Dec. 17, 1973. The basis of the court’s finding was that it was not satisfied on the evidence that a proper ticket had been delivered to the plaintiff passenger prior to embarkation at New York for her journey to Saudi Arabia with an intervening stopover in Rome. Furthermore, although Robyn Haggard clearly was in possession of a proper ticket prior to check-in at Rome for the second leg of the carriage, and despite the fact that the injuries were sustained after she boarded the aircraft, proper ticket delivery at Rome did not cure any defects in ticket delivery procedures at New York. In order to satisfy the requirement of the Warsaw Convention that advance delivery of a ticket containing an adequate notice of the air carrier’s right to limit its liability should be effected as a precondition of that right to limit, delivery must occur before the commencement of the entire journey constituting the contract of carriage as recorded in the passenger ticket.

On May 12, 1981, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court overturned Judge Egeth and reinstated the defendant’s affirmative defence to the action based on art. 22 of the Warsaw Convention as modified by the Montreal Agreement. With respect to the question of fact whether the plaintiff did receive a ticket at New York the court, per Birns, J., stated that

Thus the decision of the court turned exclusively on the curative effect of delivery at Rome and it is for this reason that the conclusions set out in the judgment are of great interest.

In reaching his earlier contrary opinion Judge Egeth was much impressed by the unitary nature of the contract of carriage—the fact that a United States citizen embarking on a round trip calling at several destinations abroad would tend to regard and