Airline Passenger Injury Litigation: Building the Plaintiff’s Montreal Convention Case

Erin R. Applebaum, Partner | Kreindler & Kreindler LLP

Erin R. Applebaum is a partner at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP in New York, where her practice is devoted to aviation accident litigation, including commercial airline disasters, general aviation accidents, and claims for passengers injured during air travel. Recognized as an authority on the Montreal Convention, she writes and teaches regularly on the law governing personal injury and wrongful death claims arising on international airline flights.

• Education & Credentials

Erin earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami in 2007 and her Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in 2010. She is admitted in New York and before the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of New York. She serves as a mentor through Brooklyn Law School’s alumni mentorship program for students interested in plaintiffs’ litigation or aviation law.

• Recognition & Leadership

Erin is Chair-Elect of the American Bar Association’s Aviation and Space Law Committee, Vice-Chair of the Aviation and Space Law Committee of the ABA’s Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section, and a former co-chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Aeronautics Committee, where she also served as chair of its Subcommittee on Commercial Airline Casualty. Her recognitions include selection to Super Lawyers for 2025–2026 following a decade as a Super Lawyers Rising Star in Aviation and Aerospace Law, the 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Litigators and Lawdragon 500 X – The Next Generation lists, and the 2025 Compassionate Counsel Award from The Milestone Foundation.

• Professional Involvement

Erin’s publications on the Convention include “An Update on the Law Governing Passenger Personal Injury and Wrongful Death Claims Arising on International Airline Flights” and “British Airways’ Position on Montreal Convention Accident Determination Rejected” in McGill’s Annals of Air and Space Law, and “Rough Skies Ahead: Legal Options for Turbulence Injuries” in the New York Law Journal. She has taught a Lawline CLE course on the Montreal Convention, presented “Litigating a Foreign Air Crash” at the ABA’s 25th Annual National Institute on Aviation Litigation, and is an active member of the American Association for Justice’s Aviation Law Section and a graduate of the 2018–19 ABA TIPS Leadership Academy.

• Experience

Erin represents passengers and families in major international and domestic airline disasters. She is co-chair of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the litigation arising from the February 2025 crash landing of Delta Flight 4819 in Toronto, a court-appointed member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the January 2025 Washington, D.C. midair collision, and served for six years on the court-appointed Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302/737 MAX litigation, where she was instrumental in challenging Boeing’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the Department of Justice. Her docket has also included the Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 engine failure and the Liberty Helicopters doors-off helicopter crash in the East River, and she is a frequent commentator on aviation liability for outlets including Reuters, The New York Times, and NPR.

SESSION 1 – Pleading the Montreal Convention Injury Claim and Choosing the Forum | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session walks plaintiff-side practitioners through every element required to successfully plead an Article 17 injury claim under the Montreal Convention, from threshold accident pleading through forum selection under Article 33. Attorneys will learn how to structure the complaint to survive preemption challenges, avoid punitive-damages and emotional-injury traps, and identify the strongest available forum given the current personal jurisdiction circuit split. Attendees leave with a practical pleading checklist and a current map of the five-jurisdiction landscape, including the December 2024 SDR limit revision and the unresolved Fifth Circuit/Second Circuit divide.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Proving and Valuing In-Flight Injury Claims at Settlement and Trial | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session teaches plaintiff attorneys how to prove and value Montreal Convention bodily injury claims from the evidentiary threshold through damages quantification at settlement and trial. Attendees will master the two-tier liability architecture under Articles 17 and 21, the December 2024 SDR limit increase, the evolving law on psychological injury, and the Article 20 contributory-negligence defense. By the end of the hour, attorneys will be able to structure a damages case, anticipate the airline’s key trial defenses, and advise clients on realistic settlement ranges under the current SDR ceiling.