United Passenger Lawyers Up, Will Likely 'Re-Accommodate' Airline In Court
United is about to get dragged... through the courts.
United is going to need a bigger hose. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for United Airlines)
United Airlines has finally, belatedly, apologized for beating up one of its paying customers for his stubborn refusal to “volunteer.”
Initially, United CEO Oscar Muñoz said: “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.” When that didn’t do the trick, United smeared the victim. Yesterday, Muñoz, devoid of any other options, went with the mea culpa:
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The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.
“I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again.”
United will likely have an opportunity to take “full responsibility” very soon. The passenger, David Dao, has hired a top-flight personal injury attorney, Thomas Demetrio. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Demetrio’s practice centers on medical negligence, product liability, airplane crash and commercial litigation on behalf of plaintiffs and he has negotiated more than $1 billion in settlements, according to the firm’s website.
When you hire an attorney who specializes in airplane crashes, you are not messing around.
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It’s likely that Dao has a case against United and against the Chicago Department Of Aviation.
George Washington law professor John Banzhaf has a pretty neat argument about United’s liability. Defenders of corporate jackboots and internet lawyers everywhere have been quick to refer to the Contract of Carriage. Technically, you agree to this every time you buy an airline ticket. United’s defenders say that rule 25, “Denied Boarding Compensation,” allowed United to refuse to honor Dao’s ticket in an overbooking situation.
Which it does.
But Professor Banzhaf points out that Dao wasn’t “denied boarding.” As George Carlin might say, he wasn’t on the plane, he was “in” the plane. At that point, rule 21, “Refusal of Transport,” should apply to Dao, not rule 25. Banzhaf writes:
Rule 21, entitled “Refusal of Transport,” is very different because it clearly and expressly covers situations in which a passenger who has already boarded the plane can be removed…
The rule, which unlike the denied boarding rule does provide for removal “from the aircraft at any point,” lists some two dozen justifications including: unruly behavior, intoxication, inability to fit into one seat, medical problems or concerns, etc. But nowhere in the list of some two dozen reasons is there anything about over booking, the need to free up seats, the need for seats to accommodate crew members to be used on a different flight etc.
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Intriguing! It makes sense for there to be two very different rules for denying “boarding” and for kicking a person off a plane. For instance, you can deny somebody boarding without beating him up and dragging him through the airport. But it’s actually pretty hard to get somebody out of their seat who doesn’t want to go.
How the Chicago Department of Aviation handled their task for removing Dao might lead to another legal action. From NPR:
The Chicago Aviation Department, we should note, said that its employees did not follow standard procedure, and that one security officer is on leave while the department looks into what happened.
There are people in this country who think that the refusal to obey an order from police, whether the order is valid or not, justifies violence and even homicide by the police. But that’s not the rule. We don’t live in the state of nature. A non-violent person should not be brutalized by the state for failure to comply with a directive.
And then we’ll have to see if anybody with deep pockets has been involved with this smear campaign against Dao. Yes, I know, it’s standard operating procedure that whenever anybody defies corporate or martial authority in this country, all of their prior bad acts are “fair game” in the press. If I ever get sodomized by the police, I expect a regrettable photo of me unironically drinking a Zima to be proffered next to my brutalized face.
But the thing going on with Dao might be different because it seems likely that the alt-right latched onto the criminal record of the wrong David Dao. From the Independent:
There is presently confusion about whether the man on the United flight was actually David Thanh Duc Dao, quite possibly another person entirely to David Anh Duy Dao, the man with the criminal records.
Likely, the confusion just leads back to some dumbass internet jockeys. But would you entirely put it past United to have leaked out some of this information, given how awful their initial reaction to the situation was?
If Dao sues — when he sues — the only good move for United would be to give Dao whatever he wants, as quickly and quietly as possible. They want to take “full responsibility.” They want to “make it right,” then pay the man.
Unless United really wants there to be some “discovery” about their overbooking policies. Then we’ll get to see just how low their reputation can sink.
United faces more questions as dragged passenger hires high-powered attorney [Chicago Tribune]
After Unsatisfying Answers, United Offers ‘Deepest Apology’ For Violent Confrontation [NPR]
United Airlines Cites Wrong Rule For Illegally De-Boarding Passenger [LawNewz]
Is the United Airlines man being smeared in the media even the right David Dao? It shouldn’t matter [The Independent]
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
