Airline's Failure to Move Asthmatic Passenger Away from Smoke Causing His Death is "Accident" Within the Meaning of the Warsaw Convention (Recent Court Decisions‪)‬

Olympic Airways v. Husain, 124 S. Ct. 1221, 157 L. Ed. 2d 1146, 2004 U.S. Lexis 1620 (U.S. Supreme Court--February 24, 2004) In December 1997, Dr. Abid Hanson took a trip with his family and friends from San Francisco to Athens and Cairo, flying Olympic Airways. When he discovered that Olympic permitted smoking during international flights, he was more than a bit upset because he had a "history of recurrent anaphylactic reactions" to cigarette smoke. He made it to Europe and Africa but died on the return flight. On that return flight, Hanson and his wife (Rubina Husain, who as executor of his estate prosecuted the claim) begged airline personnel to move him further away from the smoking section of the airplane, but the flight crew refused, falsely claiming that the flight was full and also neglecting to tell Hanson that the flight had 28 "nonrevenue passengers" (i.e., airline employees), 15 of whom were farther away from the smoking section and could have switched seats with Hanson. In addition, it appears from the Court's discussion of the facts that the airline also declined to ask any of the smokers to refrain from or reduce their smoking due to Hanson's condition and failed to do so even when he began exhibiting signs of distress. As if in a bad horror movie, Hanson's condition steadily worsened during the flight but the airline nonetheless did not move him away from the smokers. He began having an allergic reaction and died despite being given shots of epinephrine, CPR, and oxygen.