An air traveler is suing British Airways after a metal water bottle fell on her head during a flight, causing her to no longer be able to see straight. While this was hardly directly the carrier's fault, the Montreal Convention does make the airline liable, so this strikes me as being a reasonable case (thanks to SDFlyer for flagging this)...
Here's hoping that this catches the attention of a few of the airlines who insist on stupidly high hand baggage weight allowances.
The weight allowance itself is not the only problem. The worst for me is tolerating passengers with hand baggage that they can't handle safely without assistance.
To clarify, when the airline covers the cost for injury under MC, it generally recovers the amount through its insurance. In some cases, the insurer, rather than the airline, may handle the claim directly with the customer.
“ Who would place a loose, metal bottle into an overhead bin, and think that’s okay?”
Stupid passengers. I have seen full water bottles fall from overhead bins a few times and luckily nobody was hurt. It usually happens when passengers are loading their backpacks on the overhead bins and their bottles are on the side pocket of the backpack. As they try to place the backpack horizontally in the bin the heavy water bottle slips from the pocket and falls down. I am not kidding, I’ve seen this happen and I always wondered what would happen if that bottle hit someone. It is super dangerous and passengers do not realize that.