United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 73-2604, 73-2606, and 73-2766

Download or read book United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 73-2604, 73-2606, and 73-2766 written by United States. District Court (New York : Southern District) and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plaintiff brought an action against three groups of insurers to recover $24,288,759, which constituted the full agreed value of its Boeing 747 which was hijacked on September 6, 1970, by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) while on a flight from Amsterdam to London and diverted to Cairo where the hijackers destroyed the aircraft. The insurance coverage on the aircraft consisted of what the District Court described as a "seamless mosaic of 'all risk' and 'war risk' insurance policies written (at varying times) by an array of private insurers and the United States Government." The first group of defendants consisted of the all risk insurers, five-sixths of whom were United States firms and the rest were Lloyds underwriters and other British and foreign companies. Beginning on November 12, 1969, the all risk insurers issued policies covering "all physical loss of or damage to the aircraft" for the full agreed value, subject to the following exclusions: 1) capture, seizure, arrest, restraint or detention or the consequences thereof or of any attempt thereat, or any taking of the property insured or damage to or destruction thereof by any Government or governmental authority or agent (whether secret or otherwise) or by any military, naval or usurped power, whether any of the foregoing be done by way of requisition or otherwise and whether in time of peace or war and whether lawful or unlawful (this subdivision 1. shall not apply, however, to any such action by a foreign government or foreign governmental authority following the forceful diversion to a foreign country by any person not in lawful possession or custody of such insured aircraft and who is not an agent or representative, secret or otherwise, of any foreign government or governmental authority); 2) war, invasion, civil war, revolution, rebellion, insurrection or war-like operations, whether there be a declaration of war or not; 3) strikes, riots, civil commotion. The all risk coverage was modified in July 1970, by deleting the exclusion of "strikes, riots, civil commotion" with coverage therefor by the first and third defendants in this group up to a limit of $10,062,393, while the balance ($14,226,290) would be covered by the war risk defendants.