Article 33 - Jurisdiction
1341. An action for damages must be brought, at the option of the plaintiff, in the territory of one of the States Parties, either before the court of the domicile of the carrier or of its principal place of business, or where it has a place of business through which the contract has been made or before the court at the place of destination.
The above is an excerpt from the Montreal Convention which governs the law of carriage by air. It has nothing to do with soil.
If the airline has a place of business through which the contract was made you can sue there. If you or your travel agent made the booking through Iberia's New York office, that qualifies and New York would have jurisdiction.
Alternatively the place of business through which the contract was made is different for an internet booking. If you sat at your computer in New Jersey and booked your flight, New Jersey is the place where you were when you got the fare, accepted it and paid with your credit card. The law was not clear on this until the case of Polanski v KLM where the California Court of Appeals in 2006 gave its decision on the point. Mr Polanski sat at his home computer in Los Angeles and purchased a ticket on KLM to fly from Los Angeles to Warsaw. He brought an action in California and KLM argued that California had no jurisdiction to hear his case because his case had to be brought in Poland (the place of destination), or in the Netherlands (the place where KLM has its principal place of business as well as its website through which the ticket was purchased). Upholding the decision of the lower Court the California Court of Appeals found that for an internet booking, Mr Polanski sat at his computer in California and so the contract was concluded in California and California did have jurisdiction.
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