It “carries costs for air safety,” declares the headline of a USA Today editorial: “Payouts could chill crews from acting on reasonable suspicions.” Earlier here.
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A federal judge has declined to dismiss the controversial lawsuit. “The imams have argued that they were removed because of religious and ethnic bias. The airline says they were ejected solely because of security concerns raised by passengers and crew members.” In August, the imams dropped the most widely criticized portion of the suit, which had named as defendants fellow passengers who had expressed fears for the flight’s security. (Dan Browning, “Flying imams score points in suit vs. US Airways”, Arizona Republic/Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov. 21; Audrey Hudson, “Judge grants imams day in court”, Washington Times, Nov. 22). See Dec. 6, 2006, Mar. 15, 2007, etc.
More from Ann Althouse (Nov. 21): “Yes, let’s get to the factfinding. No need to throw this out on a motion to dismiss when the plaintiff’s version of the facts must be taken as true.”
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While they’ve agreed to let the fellow passenger off, they continue to sue US Airways and the Minneapolis airport commission. (Michelle Malkin, Aug. 22; Audrey Hudson, “Imams drop passenger from lawsuit”, Washington Times, Aug. 22; Joseph Goldstein, “Imams Drop Fellow Passenger From Discrimination Lawsuit”, New York Sun, Aug. 23; earlier).
The Jersey Jihad arrests, following a report to authorities by an alert Circuit City employee, have reignited talk of protecting airline passengers from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior. Michelle Malkin has the slogan on a button (May 9; see also Audrey Hudson, “Republicans lobby Pelosi to protect ‘John Does’”, Washington Times, May 2; NRO “The Corner”). Earlier: Mar. 15, Mar. 22, Mar. 29, Apr. 19. Update: Jul. 20 (Hill conferees strip John Doe protection from bill).
- University of Maine official files emotional-distress suit against students who distributed truthful information about him, says Eugene Volokh [@ eponymous]
- You’d think kids at hospitals have enough woe already without snatching away the chocolate shakes and toy-prize meals that might brighten their day [Dr. Charles via KevinMD]
- Keep your eye on just-being-released documentary A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar, directed by Eric Chaikin who did the excellent Word Wars [more]
- Flying-imams lawsuit continues to generate plenty of controversy [Malkin, NY Sun, Saunders, Smerconish, Zumwalt @ NYT]
- Former ATLA president Roxanne Conlin has named her website SomePeopleJustNeedToBeSued.com; no one seems to have posted online the story of how Iowans gave her the nickname Taxanne;
- UCP has this useful guide to the state of current knowledge about cerebral palsy (via Fumento, who’s quite unsparing toward John Edwards on the topic)
- Trial lawyers launch indignant crusade against AOL (more examples) over this bit of innocuous fluff on wacky warning labels;
- Blue-ribbon excuses: woman blames shoplifting on irritable bowel syndrome [AP/NBC6.net]
- Lawyers in Alberta, Canada, challenge as unconstitutional province’s limitation on cash for soft-tissue injury in car crashes [CBC]
- Ruling expected later this spring in infringement complaint by meatpacker Hormel against “Spam Arrest” email product [Coleman, Seattle Trademark Lawyer, Jeff Kiger @ Rochester, Minn. Post-Bulletin, documents; see Jul. 9, 2003]
- After teenage admirer of bin Laden flies small plane into Tampa skyscraper, his family sues blaming his Accutane acne medication [five years ago on Overlawyered]
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“House Republicans are pushing legislation to protect airline passengers from lawsuits for reporting suspicious behavior that might be linked to a terrorist attack. Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, introduced the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007 on Thursday, a week after a lawsuit was filed by a group of Muslim imams who were taken off a US Airways flight in November.” (Dec. 6, Mar. 15, Mar. 22; Audrey Hudson, “Hill bill protects flying public”, Washington Times, Mar. 24). Syndicated columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin has been on top of developments (”The John Doe Manifesto”, National Review Online, Mar. 28; blog posts, Mar. 24, Mar. 27, Mar. 28).
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a response from the imams:
The imams’ Manhattan attorney, Omar Mohammedi, said the suit “is directed at the airlines and the airport, not passengers.”If someone has a legitimate security concern, we’re not going after that person,” he said. “Or if someone saw them praying and reported that out of ignorant fear, we aren’t going to target that.“But if someone lied and made a false report with the intention to discriminate, such as in saying the imams made anti-American comments and talked about Iraq when in fact nothing like that ever happened, we have the right to challenge that,” Mohammedi said.
(Pamela Miller, “Attorney offers aid to defendants in imam suit”, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Mar. 22). USA Today has editorially weighed in on the passengers’ side: “This legal tactic seems designed to intimidate passengers willing to do exactly what authorities have requested — say something about suspicious activity.” (”Our view on post-9/11 travel: Clerics’ lawsuit threatens security of all passengers”, Mar. 27; opposing view by Arsalan Iftikhar). See also Marc Sheppard, American Thinker, Mar. 27.
P.S. And now AP is on the case (”Imams removed from flight may sue passengers”, AP/MSNBC, Mar. 30), and Sen. Fred Thompson (”Suing for Silence”, National Review Online, Mar. 29). The imams have now amended their complaint to cast a seemingly less capacious net for John Does: Audrey Hudson, “Imams narrow target of ‘Does’”, Washington Times, Mar. 31.
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Following up on Mar. 15 and before that Dec. 6: “Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as ‘John Does’ and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim clerics booted from a November flight. … Gerry Nolting, whose Minnesota law firm Faegre & Benson LLP is offering to represent passengers for free, says the judicial system is being ‘used for intimidation purposes’ and that it is ‘just flat wrong and needs to be strongly, strongly discouraged.’” Also offering help is “Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy — a group founded in 2003 to promote moderate Muslim ideas through its Web site — [who] told The Washington Times his group will raise money for legal fees for passengers if they are sued by the imams.” (Audrey Hudson, “Muslims offer to help ‘John Does’ sued by imams”, Washington Times, Mar. 21).
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A sad case of post-9/11 discrimination, or “performance art” designed to elicit a fearful reaction among fellow passengers? And what are we to think of the suit’s naming, as “John Doe” defendants responsible for damages, an “older couple” who reacted with alarm and the gentleman of which “kept talking into his cellular phone”, possibly alerting authorities? (John McWhorter (Manhattan Institute), “Drama Queens on U.S. Airways”, New York Sun, Mar. 15; Katherine Kersten, “The real target of the 6 imams’ ‘discrimination’ suit”, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Mar. 14; Kersten blog, Mar. 14; Power Line, Mar. 15; Dystopian Philosopher (Dennis Miller video), Mar. 14; Bruce McQuain, QandO, Mar. 15). Earlier coverage: Dec. 6.
More: Audrey Hudson’s coverage of the issue in the Washington Times is kind enough to quote me (”Imams’ suit risks ‘chill’ on security”, Mar. 16).
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Completing our series of the Best of 2006 in a busy month:
- Frequent filer v. Kraft: pay my attorney millions because I didn’t read the label on your guacamole dip.
- ADA Week: drive-by suits and filing mills, $2.5 billion sidewalks, the separatist fringe, paper money redesign for the blind appeal, and an epileptic’s right to operate heavy equipment.
- Jesse Branham v. Ford: $31M verdict against Ford when driver drove off the road while turned around, and followup and more followup. See also multimillion dollar seatback verdicts, again blaming Ford for driver error. Ford did win an Arkansas “sudden acceleration” case, and the losing lawyer wrote in.
- Imams: we want to “hit [US Airways] where it hurts, the pocketbook.”
- Killer’s mom sues high school for not stopping him.
- Warren Buffett’s new insurance company on medmal caps.
- Class action for uninjured Nintendo Wii purchasers.
- GAO on litigation risk and drug development.
- Lawsuit: I should be allowed to anoint cubicles with olive oil
- What do wacky pro se cases teach about legal reform?
- UK patient: doc hurt my feelings by telling me to quit smoking
- California Prop 65: protecting us from cooked chicken.
- 19 year old dies moshing, sues home owner
- Bad facts make bad law—and that’s true even when the defendant wins because of that bad law.
Six imams (who had just attended a private conference on imams and the media and politics) were waiting for US Airways Flight 300 and decided to act rather provocatively: they shouted “Allahu Akbar!” loudly while praying in the waiting area, refused to take their assigned seats (instead squatting in the front row of first class and the exit rows—consistent with trying to control the entry and exit areas of the plane), demanded use of a seatbelt extension for the morbidly obese despite being only moderately overweight (and then placed the heavy-buckled potential weapons under their seats instead of on their seatbelts), and started speaking to one another in Arabic (which a fellow passenger translated as angry denunciations of America). They succeeded in the attempt to draw attention to themselves; the captain asked them to leave the plane, they refused, and were then arrested; the plane then underwent a 3.5-hour search for bombs.
“They should have been denied boarding and been investigated,” former air marshal Robert MacLean said. “It looks like they are trying to create public sympathy or maybe setting someone up for a lawsuit.”
Sure enough, the victimizers are now playing victim and threatening to sue under the auspices of the Muslim American Society (which was previously in the news for demanding that Muslim cab-drivers be permitted to refuse rides to passengers carrying alcohol) and the litigious Council on American-Islamic Relations (Apr. 25). The provocation, helped along by new Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), also appears to have its desired effect: “The Minneapolis airport plans to add a prayer room for Muslims, and Democrats plan to hold hearings on Muslim profiling.” (Audrey Hudson, “How the Imams Terrorized an Airliner”, Washington Times/Front Page, Nov. 29; Arizona Republic op-ed, Nov. 29; Debra Burlingame, “On a Wing and a Prayer”, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 6; LGF blog, Nov. 21; “Tale of Fibbing Imams”, Investors Business Daily, Dec. 4 via Powerline blog, Dec. 6).
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