U.S. Supreme Court rules for El Al in case involving passenger search

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (JTA) — A New York woman who sued the Israeli airline El Al over a preflight body search cannot collect damages, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. In an 8-1 decision Tuesday, the justices said a 1929 international treaty on air travel precludes passengers from invoking domestic U.S. law to sue airlines over matters not covered by the treaty. The court overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court, which held that Tsui Yuan Tseng, a clinical nutritionist at the Beth Israel Medical Center, could sue El Al under New York personal-injury law for emotional trauma she claims stemmed from a stringent El Al security search. The incident occurred in 1993, when Tseng, while checking in for a flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Tel Aviv, was classified as a “high-risk” passenger, confined for more than an hour, questioned and subjected to what she called an inappropriate search by a female security guard of her entire body. Tseng sued for $5 million, accusing El Al of false imprisonment, inflicting psychological and emotional injuries, and damaging or losing some of her personal belongings. The airline, backed by the Clinton administration, argued that it is not liable because the incident did not fall within the provisions of the 1929 Warsaw Convention treaty on international air travel. In throwing out Tseng’s lawsuit, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court majority, said, “We would be hard put to conclude that the delegates at Warsaw meant to subject air carriers to the distinct, non-uniform liability rules of the individual signatory nations.” The decision is not expected to affect future cases. Last fall, the United States ratified a new treaty that modifies the Warsaw Convention in a way that would specifically prevent similar lawsuits.