New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court did not seem inclined on Monday to let a California woman injured in an Austrian train accident sue in American court.

The woman, Carol P. Sachs, lost her legs after trying to board a moving train in Innsbruck. She said she should be allowed to sue the railroad in federal court in California because she had bought her Eurail pass in the United States over the Internet from a travel agent in Massachusetts.

It was the first argument of the new term, and there was no evidence of the discord that marked the end of the last one in June. There was, rather, a seeming consensus that the case did not have enough to do with the United States to allow a lawsuit here.

“There is one contact with the United States,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an expert on jurisdiction. “A pass is bought from a travel agent in Massachusetts, a pass covering 30-odd railroads. That’s all that happened in the United States.”

“All of the relevant conduct, the tortious conduct, occurred abroad,” she added.

Justice Elena Kagan asked whether buying a ticket in the United States to an opera performance in Vienna would allow her to sue here if she slipped on a puddle and fell there. Her tone suggested that the idea was absurd.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who has just published a book on the role of American courts in the global economy, said he was not aware of any nation that would open its courts to suits from its citizens for injuries abroad in similar circumstances.

The precise legal question in the case was whether the railroad, which is owned by the Austrian government, was entitled to sovereign immunity. Foreign states are generally protected under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, but that law makes an exception for claims “based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States.”

Jeffrey L. Fisher, a lawyer for Ms. Sachs, said the sale of the rail pass was enough to satisfy the exception. “The overall integrated activity of running the railway train enterprise, which includes selling the product and delivering the product,” sufficed, he said.

Juan C. Basombrio, a lawyer for the railroad, said it would be impossible for the seller of a Eurail pass in the United States “to warn about all conditions at hundreds of potential railroad stations in Europe.”

The federal government supported the Austrian company on the crucial issue in the case, OBB Personenverkehr A.G. v. Sachs, No. 13-1067. Edwin S. Kneedler, a deputy solicitor general, urged the justices “not to draw U.S. courts into what could be very sensitive international questions of having U.S. courts pass judgment on what happens in a foreign country.”

Mr. Fisher urged the court to consider the implications of its ruling. On one hand, “you’ll never see a case like this again,” he said. “Not only in the railroad context, but even in the airline industry.” That is because, he said, passes and tickets now routinely specify where suits may be brought.

On the other hand, he went on, the court’s ruling could apply to a lot of other types of disputes, including ones arising from financial transactions and employment agreements.

Justice Ginsburg did not appear persuaded, saying the court could rule narrowly. “The question is, ‘What does ‘based on’ mean” in the immunities law? she said. “And the court could say ‘based on’ is not based on if all that happened in the United States is the purchase of the ticket.”