Lipton & Anor v BA Cityflyer Ltd [2024] UKSC 24 (10 July 2024)
Citation:Lipton & Anor v BA Cityflyer Ltd [2024] UKSC 24 (10 July 2024)
Rule of thumb: If the pilot of the plane becomes ill & the flight is delayed, can you get compensation for this? Yes, this is not an extraordinary event sufficient, so there should be pilots on standby, and a delay for this gives rise to a claim for compensation.
Background facts: This case was in the subjects of international law, jurisprudence, & air-carrier services.
The basic facts were that the pilot became ill. The flight was delayed. The parties were in dispute over whether this gave rise to compensation.
Court held: The UKSC affirmed that a flight being delayed due to the driver getting ill did give a right to compensation. EU law on this subject prior to Brexit has not been repealed (all law passed by previous Governments applies as a valid source of law unless expressly repealed) so this passed EU still applies to regulate this arrangement. Injuries & illness of pilots was also deemed to fall within the ‘wear and tear’ test, and not fall into the ‘extraordinary events’ test, so the passengers were entitled to compensation.
Ratio-decidendi:
'The interpretation as proposed by the Liptons is also consistent with the authorities concerned with technical defects. As explained above, defects in the aircraft (what was called mechanical "wear and tear" in Huzar) have regularly been held to be an inherent part of an air carrier's activity and not an extraordinary circumstance. We agree with Coulson LJ that these cases strongly suggest a similar answer to this appeal. A carrier's operation depends on two principal resources: its people and its aircraft. Wear and tear of the aircraft and its component parts is not extraordinary. The wear and tear on people, manifesting itself in illness, should not be regarded as any different. As Coulson LJ put it, the captain is just as much part of "the operating system" (Pešková) as the mechanical components of the aircraft. The illnesses of staff and the wearing out of parts of the aircraft are ultimately no different when considering inherency, because they both need to be allowed for in the air carrier's operating system…
(i) Can a UK court make a reference to the CJEU in respect of accrued EU law rights? It is common ground that this is no longer possible. But how does one arrive at that conclusion? … (ii) Is a UK court (eg a first instance court) bound by a post-IP completion day decision of the CJEU (such as, in the instant case, TAP)? … (iii) In principle, could the UK Supreme Court depart from retained EU case law ie pre-IP completion day decisions of the CJEU (such as, in the instant case, Sturgeon) in interpreting accrued EU law rights? … (iv) Is it correct that accrued EU law rights, viewed as a body of pure EU law ultimately controlled by the CJEU, will continue to apply indefinitely into the future constrained only by any limitation periods applicable to the relevant accrued EU law right? …
In summary, the "not retained EU law analysis" gives alarming or, at best, uncertain or illogical answers to those four questions. In contrast, if one adopts the "retained EU law analysis" set out above, the answers to those questions are clear and non-problematic. They are to be answered, respectively, "no", "no", "yes" and "no".
For all those reasons, I therefore reject the "not retained EU law analysis" and accept the "retained EU law analysis". Indeed, even if both analyses were possible (which I do not accept), there appears to be nothing to be gained and, on the contrary, significant practical disadvantages if one denies that retained EU law can be, and should be, interpreted as embracing accrued EU law rights’.
Lord Sales at 164-165, & 192
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.