After six years of trials, the Court of Justice of the European Union has issued its verdict: a dog is a suitcase. The question that the European court had to resolve is whether the loss of a pet should entail greater compensation than that contemplated for a suitcase. And the response has been blunt.
October 22, 2019. That was the day an Argentine family lost their dog Mona. That day, the family was at the Ezeiza airport, next to Buenos Aires, to travel to Barcelona. Given the company’s regulations, Mona had to travel in a carrier in the hold of the plane, but during the loading operation, the dog escaped from the control of the operators and, scared, ran towards the runway.
They explained those days in The Vanguard that Grisel, its owner, was completely sure that she had closed the cage properly. However, once they were seated, a flight attendant approached to notify them of what had happened and confirm that the dog had escaped. The mother, who was accompanying Grisel, then claimed to have seen her dog running away and the workers trying to catch her but they were not allowed to get off the plane.
Loss. After this first moment of anguish had passed, the family claimed that the Iberia workers confirmed that the dog had been trapped and that they had to give them a telephone number so that a contact could come get the animal at the airport.
However, when Christian, the owner’s brother, went to the airport, they told him that the dog had escaped again and that they had not been able to catch her. Since then, the family did everything possible to investigate in the vicinity of the airport if the animal was nearby but with no luck.
Iberia’s response. Then, the family was already indicating that they were unhappy with how Iberia had handled the situation. “We do not have any type of response from the airline. Iberia tells us that as happened in Argentina, nothing can be done from Spain,” they explained to the Catalan newspaper at the time.
For its part, from Iberia in Argentina, the company assured Clarion that they were very sorry for what happened and that both Iberia and the airport manager kept the search active.
According to her version, the animal “broke one of the sides of the cage and escaped. Before shipping any cage with an animal inside, we always seal the opening doors to prevent the animal from opening it and escaping. However, Mona broke the opposite side of the cage and that’s why she got out.” They confirm that the workers managed to recover Mona but she bit the worker’s arms and face, fleeing again.
“Non-material damage”. Given the animal was lost, the family decided to report Iberia to claim compensation for what happened. Given the seriousness of the matter, the family requested that the company pay 5,000 euros for “non-material damages”, which Iberia refused, they explain in Guardian.
They explain in the English newspaper that Iberia agreed to compensate for the loss of the animal since it had escaped under the responsibility of its workers. However, they were not willing to pay more than would be paid for the loss of any luggage.
That is, they would pay but the same amount that they would pay for the loss of a suitcase.
Europe agrees… with Iberia. During a process that has lasted six years, since the Madrid game they escalated the debate in 2024 to the Court of Justice of the European Union who, finally, ruled in favor of Iberia. The company will compensate the family as if they had lost a suitcase. That is to say, just under 1,600 euros which is the maximum amount contemplated for these cases.
When the issue was brought to the European court, Iberia defended itself, arguing that “It makes no sense to equate animals with people. The owner, the only one who fully understands the animal, is the one who chooses to expose it to the often stressful and challenging experience of traveling by plane.”
And he stressed that “it is his responsibility to prepare it for the trip, assume the risk of exposing it to an inhospitable environment and guarantee its veterinary aptitude. But the most important thing is that only he can assess the deep emotional bond with his pet and, therefore, the moral damage he would suffer if something happened to him during transport.”
How is a pet valued? According to the Court of Justice of the European Unionvery simply: a special declaration of the value of the pet. This is what, in the opinion of the European court, the family should have signed and the company accepted. When this agreement is reached, the company agrees to pay a higher compensation if something happens but the passenger also pays a surcharge for the transportation of the animal.
This is, in the opinion of Carlos Villa Corta, the family’s lawyer, a “missed opportunity to continue raising awareness about the rights of animals and the people who care for them. The Court of Justice of the European Union considers that pets do not deserve special or improved legal protection compared to a simple suitcase,” in words reported by Guardian.
What the European court alleges is that the Montreal Convention that regulates these cases speaks of “people and luggage” and that, therefore, the term people would cover the damages to the “passenger” and that everything else must be considered as luggage. And they emphasize: “the fact that the protection of animal welfare is an objective of general interest recognized by the European Union does not prevent animals from being transported as ‘baggage’ and being considered as such for the purposes of liability resulting from the loss of an animal.”
Photo | TA-WEI LIN and Miguel Angel Sanz
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