California Court of Appeal

In plaintiff's suit against an airline for refusing to honor an expired $100 travel certificate, claiming that the expiration date violated Civil Code section 1749.5, which makes it unlawful to sell a gift certificate that contains an expiration date, trial court's order sustaining defendant's demurrer on the ground that plaintiff's claims were preempted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act (ADA), is affirmed where: 1) for a claim to be preempted by the ADA, the claim must relate to airline rates, routes or services, and the claim must derive from the enactment or enforcement of state law; and 2) here, both prongs of the test are met as plaintiff's claims relate to "services" because they concern the airline's sale of gift certificates that can be used to purchase airline travel and his claims derive from state law because it is on a California statute that plaintiff bases his claim that the expiration date on the face of the gift certificate is unenforceable.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/26/2010
• Published 08/26/2010

Judges

• Suzukawa

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Adam J. Gutride, Jane H. Barrett