Montreal Convention Governs International Round-Trip Flights and Incorporates Maritime Joint-and-Several Liability Where the Treaty Is Silent

1. Introduction

This appeal arose from a January 2022 charter flight piloted by Alex Gutierrez carrying a single passenger, Richard Murphy, on the first leg of a round trip from Miami to the Bahamas. Near destination, the aircraft’s engines failed due to fuel starvation, forcing a ditching in the ocean roughly five miles from the Bahamas. Both survived, but Murphy alleged significant injury.

Murphy and his wife sued multiple defendants, including (as relevant on appeal) the charter company Airway Air Charter, Inc. (d/b/a Noble Air Charter) and the pilot, Gutierrez. Although the complaint referenced “Article 17 [of the] Warsaw Convention,” the district court ultimately tried the case under the Montreal Convention, rejected a liability waiver, and after a jury verdict entered an $2.3 million judgment (after reduction for Murphy’s comparative fault) against Noble and Gutierrez.

Gutierrez appealed, pressing four principal issues: (i) whether trying the case under the Montreal Convention (rather than the Warsaw Convention named in the complaint) was error and prejudicial; (ii) whether joint and several liability was properly imposed; (iii) whether the jury should have been instructed to apportion fault to Cessna (a nonparty manufacturer); and (iv) whether “zoomed-in” preflight videos should have been excluded for nondisclosure under Rule 37(c).

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed across the board. It held that:

• The Montreal Convention was the operative treaty governing Murphy’s round-trip international carriage, and the complaint’s reference to the Warsaw Convention did not warrant dismissal or reversal because it pled facts giving fair notice and Gutierrez showed no prejudice.
• Because the Montreal Convention is silent on allocation of liability between a carrier and its agents, courts “pass through” to the law that would govern absent the Convention; here, maritime law applied and supplies joint and several liability.
• The district court did not reversibly err by omitting Cessna from the verdict form; the instructions allowed a complete “sole third-party fault” defense under Montreal Convention Article 21(2)(b), and the Convention does not create partial exoneration via third-party comparative fault.
• Admitting zoomed-in versions of previously disclosed videos was within the district court’s discretion because any disclosure lapse was harmless under Rule 37(c) given the videos were “virtually identical.”

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited (and How They Drove the Result)

A. Treaty interpretation, exclusivity, and the Warsaw–Montreal framework

• E. Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd: Used as a historical and purposive anchor—Warsaw’s aim of uniform rules for international air claims—supporting the court’s view that the governing treaty regime must be identified correctly, even if a party mislabels it.
• El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng: Cited for the lineage and amendment history of Warsaw, reinforcing that “Warsaw” in modern U.S. practice often refers to an evolving instrument set culminating in Montreal.
• Eli Lilly & Co. v. Air Exp. Int'l USA, Inc. and Pierre-Louis v. Newvac Corp.: These Eleventh Circuit cases supplied the court’s baseline propositions that the Montreal Convention modernizes Warsaw and is the exclusive means of recovery for covered passenger injury claims, shaping the conclusion that the district court applied the correct treaty as the controlling law.
• World Holdings, LLC v. Fed. Repub- lic of Germany: Cited for the standard of review (de novo) on treaty interpretation, underscoring that the appellate court independently assessed whether Montreal governed.
• Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of City of Richmond and Sompo Japan Ins., Inc. v. Nippon Cargo Airlines Co.: These authorities informed the temporal-law point: courts apply the law in effect when deciding, and in treaty succession contexts liability is determined under the treaty regime effective at the relevant time (Sompo illustrating the succession analysis).

B. Pleading doctrine: wrong legal label, right facts

• Johnson v. City of Shelby: The central pleading principle—Rule 8 does not allow dismissal for an “imperfect statement of the legal theory”—supported affirmance despite the complaint’s Warsaw label.
• MSP Recovery Claims, Series LLC v. United Auto. Ins. Co. (quoting Sams v. United Food & Com. Workers Int'l Union): Used to emphasize “notice” pleading: a complaint need not detail the precise theory; it must put defendants on notice of the claim and its grounds.
• Doss v. S. Cent. Bell Tel. Co., Oglala Sioux Tribe of Indians v. Andrus, Oglala Sioux Tribe, and Hatmaker v. Mem'l Med. Ctr.: Cited as reinforcing cross-circuit support that pleading the wrong legal theory (even citing the wrong statute) is not fatal absent unfair prejudice, shaping the court’s prejudice-focused resolution.

C. Montreal Convention interpretation through Warsaw analogs

• Campbell v. Air Jamaica Ltd. and El Al, 525 U.S. 155: The court relied on these to show functional continuity: the elements of an “Article 17” passenger injury claim are materially the same under both Conventions, blunting Gutierrez’s prejudice argument.
• Underwriters at Lloyds Subscribing to Cover Note B0753PC1308275000 v. Expeditors Korea Ltd.: Supported the interpretive method of using Warsaw case law as persuasive authority because Montreal was modeled on Warsaw.

D. Gap-filling when the Convention is silent: pass-through to otherwise-applicable law

• Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co.: The controlling analytic template. The court used Zicherman’s “pass-through” approach: where the Convention is silent on a remedial question, courts apply the law that would govern absent the Convention, rather than inventing uniform common-law rules under admiralty “for uniformity’s sake.”

E. When maritime law applies (and what it supplies)

• Sisson v. Ruby and Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson: Provided the “potential hazard to maritime commerce” component of the maritime nexus test—met by a downed aircraft creating navigational hazards.
• Exec. Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland and LaCourse v. PAE Worldwide Inc.: Anchored the requirement of a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity in non-DOHSA contexts, framing the jurisdiction/substantive-law bridge.
• Mil- ler v. United States: Critical Eleventh Circuit authority for the proposition that U.S.–Bahamas travel bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity, supplying the key link to maritime law in this fact pattern.

F. Joint and several liability in maritime tort

• Edmonds v. Com- pagnie Generale Transatlantique: Cited to articulate the classic maritime/common-law joint and several rule for indivisible injury where a defendant’s negligence is a substantial factor.
• McDermott, Inc. v. AmClyde: Used to reconcile joint and several liability with comparative fault and settlement doctrines, explicitly rejecting the idea that comparative fault displaced joint and several liability in maritime judgments against multiple defendants.
• United States v. Reliable Transfer Co. and Sunderland Marine Mut. Ins. Co. v. Weeks Marine Const. Co.: Invoked by Gutierrez to argue comparative responsibility; the court distinguished them as compatible with, not contrary to, joint and several liability.

G. Preservation and waiver on appeal

• Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co.: Used to reject Gutierrez’s post-judgment proportionate-share reduction theory because it was not raised in the district court.

H. Jury instruction and verdict form review standards

• United States v. May- weather: Supplied the three-part test for reversible error when a requested instruction is refused, supporting affirmance because the defense theory was substantially covered and not vital in the manner claimed.

I. Evidence disclosure sanctions and harmlessness

• Henderson v. Ford Motor Co. (citing Murphy v. Magnolia Elec. Power Ass'n): Reinforced that district courts have broad discretion under Rule 37(c) in deciding whether exclusion is proper.
• Taylor v. Mentor Worldwide LLC and Crawford v. ITW Food Equip. Grp., LLC: Supported the proposition that late or supplemental evidentiary material may be admitted where the lapse is harmless and the district court’s judgment is not clearly erroneous.
• S. Grande View Dev. Co., Inc. v. City of Alabaster: Cited for the abuse-of-discretion standard governing evidentiary rulings.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. Why Montreal (not “Warsaw”) governed—and why the pleading defect did not matter

The court treated the “Warsaw Convention” references as a mislabeling problem, not a missing-cause-of-action problem. It reasoned:

• Coverage: Montreal applies to international carriage and, under Article 1(2), can reach flights within one State Party where there is an agreed stopping place in another State—even if that other State is not a party. The Florida round-trip to the Bahamas fit this formulation.
• Exclusivity: For covered passenger injuries, Montreal is the “exclusive means” for damages, preempting alternative causes of action within its scope.
• Pleading sufficiency: Under Rule 8 and Johnson, a complaint survives if it alleges facts plausibly entitling relief; it need not identify the correct treaty by name.
• No prejudice: Gutierrez failed to show that discovery strategy or trial presentation would have differed materially. The elements of an Article 17 claim were treated as effectively the same, and even the defense differences were deemed functionally similar in practice because both frameworks allow avoidance/limitation of liability by showing due care or that the carrier’s negligence did not cause the harm.

Notably, the court also pointed to record evidence undermining any surprise: Gutierrez himself cited the Montreal Convention as a related treaty relevant to Warsaw interpretation before the district court’s treaty ruling.

B. Why joint and several liability applied (and why maritime law supplied it)

The court’s reasoning proceeded in steps:

• Step 1 (Treaty preemption and silence): Montreal Article 29 preempts external causes of action within scope, but it does not answer every remedial allocation question. The Convention states some joint-and-several rules (e.g., successive carriers under Article 36(3)) yet says nothing about allocation between a carrier and its agent/pilot.
• Step 2 (Pass-through doctrine): Under Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., silence means courts apply the law that would govern absent the Convention.
• Step 3 (Identify the otherwise-applicable law): DOHSA did not apply because Murphy was injured, not killed, but the maritime nexus test supported applying general maritime law given the ocean ditching and the U.S.–Bahamas maritime relationship recognized in Mil- ler v. United States.
• Step 4 (Maritime rule): Under Edmonds and McDermott, joint and several liability remains the default rule for indivisible maritime injuries when there is a judgment against multiple defendants.

The opinion is especially clear on the doctrinal compatibility point: comparative fault allocation among defendants does not eliminate joint and several liability risk-shifting where a plaintiff’s recovery from one tortfeasor may be limited by insolvency or other external constraints.

C. Why Cessna did not belong on the verdict form

Gutierrez sought a verdict form expressly allocating fault to Cessna. The court rejected this for two connected reasons:

• Treaty structure: Montreal Article 21(2)(b) is an “all-or-nothing” exoneration defense beyond the strict-liability threshold when damage is “solely due” to a third party. It does not create partial third-party comparative fault exoneration.
• Instruction adequacy: The jury was already instructed on the third-party-sole-cause defense. Gutierrez argued Cessna’s role in closing. Under United States v. May- weather, even assuming a more explicit instruction could be “correct,” omission was not reversible because the defense theory was substantially covered and not shown to be “so vital” that its absence impaired the defense.

D. Why the zoomed-in videos were properly admitted

Applying Rule 37(c), the district court treated the zoomed-in exhibits as, at most, a harmless nondisclosure because the content was “virtually identical” to videos already disclosed and admitted. The Eleventh Circuit deferred under abuse-of-discretion review, emphasizing:

• The expert testified the modification was merely zooming (no pixel “enhancement” altering substance).
• Gutierrez identified no concrete substantive difference apart from magnification.
• The asserted inability to cross-examine a witness was not caused by the zoomed-in versions, given the witness’s testimony procedure was agreed by the parties.

3.3. Impact

• Treaty pleading and case management: The decision reinforces that Montreal governs covered international carriage in U.S. courts even where pleadings inaccurately invoke “Warsaw,” and that the litigation focus will be on notice and prejudice rather than formal treaty labels.
• Remedial “gap” questions under Montreal: By explicitly applying Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co. in the Montreal context, the opinion strengthens a predictable methodology: treaty text first; if silent, “pass through” to the otherwise-applicable substantive law (often maritime law for overwater aviation incidents).
• Allocation strategy for defendants: Defendants facing Montreal claims arising from ocean ditchings should anticipate joint and several exposure where maritime law applies, even if comparative fault is apportioned by the factfinder.
• Third-party manufacturer theories: The ruling signals that, at least under the court’s reading here, Montreal’s third-party language supports complete exoneration only when the third party is the sole cause—not a mechanism to put a nonparty on the verdict form for partial comparative allocation.
• Rule 37(c) practice: The case illustrates a practical boundary: “new” versions of already disclosed demonstratives (e.g., zoomed copies) are likely to be treated as harmless where they do not add substantive information.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Montreal Convention vs. Warsaw Convention: The Warsaw Convention is the older international treaty system for airline liability; the Montreal Convention modernizes and consolidates it for many countries, including the United States. For covered travel, Montreal generally supplies the exclusive remedy.
• Article 17 (“accident” liability): A passenger injury claim under Article 17 typically requires showing an “accident” occurred in the course of international carriage and caused injury.
• Strict liability up to a cap (100,000 SDRs): Under Montreal, airlines are liable up to a set threshold without the passenger needing to prove negligence; beyond it, the airline may avoid additional liability by proving it was not negligent or that a third party solely caused the damage.
• Special Drawing Right (SDR): An IMF-defined unit used in treaties as a stable reference point; its value fluctuates based on currency markets.
• “Pass-through” gap filling: If the treaty does not answer a particular remedial question (e.g., how to allocate liability among defendants), courts apply the law that would otherwise govern (here, maritime tort law).
• Joint and several liability: If multiple defendants are legally responsible for one indivisible injury, the plaintiff can collect the full judgment from any one of them; defendants can later seek contribution/adjustment among themselves where permitted.
• Rule 37(c) “harmless” nondisclosure: Even if evidence was not properly disclosed, a court may still admit it if the failure did not meaningfully prejudice the opposing party’s ability to litigate fairly.

5. Conclusion

This opinion consolidates several practical rules for Montreal Convention litigation in the Eleventh Circuit: (1) Montreal governs covered international carriage even when a complaint misnames “Warsaw,” so long as the facts provide fair notice and there is no prejudice; (2) when Montreal is silent on allocation among defendants, courts apply Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co.’s pass-through approach to the otherwise-applicable law—here, maritime law—bringing with it joint and several liability; (3) Montreal’s third-party provision supports complete exoneration only where the third party is the sole cause, not partial allocation to a nonparty via the verdict form; and (4) modestly modified demonstrative evidence (such as zoomed-in video) will often be admitted where any disclosure defect is harmless.