Vuksanovich v. Americas

Background

Kristi Vuksanovich, a former JetBlue flight attendant, sued Airbus Americas, Inc. and Airbus S.A.S. She asserted strict products liability, negligence, and breach of implied warranty of merchantability, alleging that defective Airbus aircraft exposed her to toxic cabin fumes during “fume events” and caused short-term and long-term health problems. Mark Vuksanovich asserted a related loss-of-consortium claim. The opinion states that the plaintiffs are nonresidents and that their claims accrued in Massachusetts, where the injury occurred.

Airbus moved for summary judgment based on the statute of limitations, which is the deadline for filing a lawsuit. Airbus also filed a second summary-judgment motion and five motions seeking to exclude expert testimony. The plaintiffs asked the court to apply judicial estoppel, a doctrine that can prevent a party from taking an inconsistent factual position in litigation.

Applicable limitations periods

Because the case was in federal court based on diversity jurisdiction, the court applied New York’s choice-of-law rules. New York’s borrowing statute requires the court to use the shorter limitations period, including applicable tolling extensions, from New York or the state where the claim accrued. The court determined that the claims accrued in Massachusetts and therefore compared the Massachusetts and New York periods.

Both states generally provided three-year periods for the tort and warranty claims relevant here, and both had COVID-related tolling orders. New York’s tolling period was longer than Massachusetts’s by 123 days. The court therefore applied Massachusetts’s shorter limitations period and its 105-day COVID tolling period. Under that calculation, claims that accrued on or after June 30, 2017, could be timely, but claims accruing before that date were time-barred.

Accrual of Kristi Vuksanovich’s claims

The court applied Massachusetts’s discovery rule. Under that rule, a claim begins to accrue when the plaintiff knows or reasonably should have known both that she was injured and that the defendant or the defendant’s product might have caused the injury. The court said that a diagnosis, knowledge of the full extent of the injury, or knowledge of the specific mechanism of exposure was not required.

The court found no genuine dispute about the material facts concerning Kristi Vuksanovich’s symptoms, medical treatment, and communications. On June 16, 2017, she noticed a dirty-socks odor aboard an Airbus aircraft and experienced symptoms including a sore throat, headache, and stomach pain. She continued to experience symptoms, sought medical treatment, had difficulty with household and personal activities, and did not return to work for nine days.

The court also identified three sources of information connecting the symptoms to cabin odors: a pre-flight briefing that the aircraft had experienced severe cabin odors; a JetBlue email explaining that cabin-fume exposure could cause health effects and directing crew members to medical experts; and information that a JetBlue pilot had become ill from cabin odors. The court concluded that these facts would have put a reasonable person on notice before June 30, 2017 that the cabin odors could have caused the injury and would have created a duty to investigate further.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments that the claims did not accrue until October 14, 2017, when Kristi stopped working and became disabled; until August 29, 2017, when she learned about allegedly faulty oil flaps; or until she knew the specific technological cause of the exposure. The court also rejected reliance on Kristi’s asserted lack of training, explaining that the discovery rule uses an objective reasonable-person standard.

Loss-of-consortium claim

The court held that Mark Vuksanovich’s loss-of-consortium claim generally accrued at the same time as Kristi’s underlying claims. The record showed that the couple’s relationship was affected as early as June 16, 2017, and the plaintiffs offered no specific facts showing a later accrual date. The court therefore concluded that the consortium claim was also untimely.

Judicial estoppel and disposition

The court denied the plaintiffs’ request to judicially estop Airbus from relying on New York’s borrowing statute. It held that the governing limitations law was a legal issue, not a factual position subject to judicial estoppel, and that the dispute did not involve a position taken in a prior legal proceeding.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain granted Airbus’s first motion for summary judgment and entered judgment for Airbus, dismissing all of the plaintiffs’ claims as time-barred. The court denied Airbus’s second motion for summary judgment and its five motions to preclude testimony as moot. It also denied Airbus’s motion for oral argument, directed the clerk to enter judgment, and closed the case.