24 F.3d 39 (9th Cir. 1994)
Andrews v. United Airlines is a staple in first-year Torts because it squarely addresses the scope of a common carrier's duty of care and the role of foreseeability when third-party conduct contributes to a passenger's injury.
Under California law governing common carriers, does an airline's duty of utmost care require more than general warnings and standard procedures to protect passengers from the foreseeable risk of falling overhead baggage, such that whether the airline breached its duty presents a triable question for the jury?
In California, a common carrier owes passengers the utmost care and diligence for their safe carriage and must do all that human care, vigilance, and foresight reasonably can do under the circumstances to avoid harm; however, a carrier is not an insurer of passenger safety. Whether the carrier met this heightened standard in a particular context is generally a question of fact unless no reasonable jury could find a breach. Foreseeable third-party acts do not break the chain of causation or negate the carrier's duty; rather, the carrier must take reasonable precautions, commensurate with the utmost-care standard, to guard against such foreseeable risks.
Reversing summary judgment, the court held that a reasonable jury could find United breached its common-carrier duty of utmost care by failing to take additional precautions to prevent injury from falling overhead baggage; issues of breach and causation should be decided by a jury.
Andrews is routinely taught for three reasons. First, it illustrates the heightened duty common carriers owe and how that standard meaningfully raises the bar on what counts as reasonable precautions without imposing strict liability. Second, it shows how foreseeability interacts with third-party conduct: the fact that another passenger opened the bin does not negate the airline's duty where the risk was known and preventable. Third, it is a clear application of the summary-judgment standard in negligence cases—courts are reluctant to take breach questions from juries where competing inferences exist about the adequacy of precautions. The case remains a key precedent in disputes involving overhead-bin injuries and, more broadly, in defining the contours of carrier liability in modern transportation settings.