Wire
American Airlines defibrillator claim stays alive after ruling
The Fifth Circuit said the FAA-required device may not have worked when Kevin Greenidge went into cardiac arrest. That keeps part of Melissa Arzu’s Montreal Convention suit in federal court.
A teenager’s death on an American Airlines flight still has one live path in court. In a Fifth Circuit ruling released May 14, the panel said the airline cannot be held liable just because its crew may have mishandled a medical emergency, but it left open a claim that the plane’s automatic external defibrillator, or AED, failed when it was needed most.
Kevin Greenidge was 14 when his heart stopped during the flight. His aunt, Melissa Arzu, sued under the Montreal Convention, the international treaty that can make airlines strictly liable for injuries caused by an “accident” on an international flight.
Why the crew-response theory failed
The court drew a line around the crew’s response. It said a deviation from American’s internal policy is not enough to make the response an Article 17 accident, and an imperfect medical response alone cannot sustain liability under the treaty.
That matters because the convention looks for something unexpected or unusual that is external to the passenger. On that theory, the judges said, the airline’s handling of the emergency did not cross the legal threshold, even if the response was not ideal.
The equipment question stays open
The AED claim survived because it turns on a different kind of event. The Federal Aviation Administration required the flight to carry an approved, functional AED, and the record left room for a dispute over whether the device actually malfunctioned.
Witnesses, including two who were medically trained, said the AED never shocked Kevin. The panel said that could support a finding that something unexpected or unusual happened on board, which means that part of Arzu’s case can keep moving.