Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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Qantas settled the American passenger’s complaint, so we never got to hear the battle of the experts about whether the 3-year-old’s screaming really caused blood to issue from her eardrum as alleged. [Suzanne Murray/CafeMom via Stoll and many readers]
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I was on the Oregon-based radio show Tuesday evening to discuss the legislative battle over the DISCLOSE Act and the case of the passenger bumped by Southwest Airlines to make way for the second seat needed for an obese teen.
The latest lawsuit from Geoffrey Fieger raises the question whether the sort of mildly embarrassing episode you might once have dined out on for a few weeks now qualifies as something you should be able to retire on. Kevin Underhill wonders too.
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A “massive plume” of legal action is likely to follow the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, reports the Times (U.K.). Along with plenty of litigation against airlines themselves and other travel companies, stranded employees might file claims against their employers for not doing enough to get them home, and disrupted employers might be sued if they dock pay of employees who considered themselves ready and able to work.
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Are consumers as a group better off? [Tony Santaella, WLTX/USA Today via Carpe Diem]
Update Mar. 10: Continental, American announce similar cuts.
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Defying the prospect of lawsuits, more airlines are imposing new rules on “customers of size.” [David Landsel, AirfareWatchdog.com] Earlier here, etc.
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“Air Canada Ordered To Offer Nut-Free Zones” [Steyn, NRO] More: National Post, CBC.
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A federal judge has dismissed the airline’s suit against pilots seeking to reclaim pension outlays arising from what it said were paper divorces followed by remarriages to the same spouse. Still pending are the pilots’ suits against Continental for wrongful dismissal and invasion of privacy stemming from the airline’s investigation of the episode. [ABA Journal; earlier here and here]
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California: “Stanley Hilton, 60, of Hillsborough, said in unique court papers that his wife of 13 years divorced him and took their young triplets with her last year because of ‘around-the-clock’ jet noise at SFO. …Hilton last week sued (PDF) SFO, Hillsborough, the counties of San Mateo and San Francisco, dozens of airlines and jet manufacturers, and the real estate agents and couple that sold him his home on Darrell Road for $1.475 million in April 2003.” Hilton, who is representing himself pro se, “is a former civil litigation attorney with a law degree from Duke University and was an active member of the State Bar of California for most of the past three decades, records show. However, the Bar said courts deemed Hilton ineligible to practice law in August.” [San Mateo County Times, SF Chronicle "The Scavenger", Lowering the Bar.]
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The Transportation Security Administration is vigilant against those who would imperil national security by trying to carry the desktop amusements through airport checkpoints. [Boing Boing, Lowering the Bar]
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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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Continental Airlines says nine pilots got “paper” divorces from their spouses and then remarried after securing lump-sum distributions from the carrier’s retirement plan. Federal regulators have in the past indicated that plan administrators should disallow sham transactions intended to qualify for tax-favored retirement benefits. Two pilots have now countered with charges that the airline invaded their privacy when it investigated whether their divorces were really what they seemed. [Houston Chronicle and followup]
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Evil HR Lady has more thoughts on the United Airlines incident, along with some kind words for this website.
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There is a horrifying tale on Consumerist about a family that missed a flight to visit their dying mother in the hospital because a ticket agent refused to help them because it was time for her break. What the story doesn’t tell you, and what none of the commenters seem to realize, is that it’s the trial lawyers that put United Airlines in that situation. Oregon labor laws California labor laws require workers to be permitted to take breaks; plaintiffs’ attorneys have made a multi-million-dollar cottage industry out of class action lawsuits against employers where customer service was permitted to take priority and workers occasionally didn’t take their breaks. (In California, the penalty for failing to provide a ten-minute break is an hour of pay.) To avoid this, the employer has to enforce the break period stringently, because they can potentially be held liable even if the employee voluntarily avoids the break.
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Yale student Jesse Maiman says US Airways lost his XBox videogame console and he thinks $1 million would make a fair exchange. [Cincinnati Enquirer]
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The client-chasing has begun on Continental Flight 3407, ably chronicled by Eric Turkewitz.
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Point of Law