What Do You Do If The Airline Injures You?
Michael Babboni
Personal Injury
Earlier in the year, the world bore witness to a spectacular failure of customer service and security in the airline industry. In early April, on a United Airlines flight 3411 departing from Chicago and bound for Louisville, four United Airline employees needed, at the last minute, to board the fully booked flight. As a result, the staff on the flight told the passengers, who had paid for the flight, that four of them would need to give up their seats. An offer of $400 was made as compensation, but no one volunteered.The offer was then doubled to $800, but again, no one volunteered. Finally, the staff made a random selection of four people and told them they were required to disembark the plane. Three of the people selected complied with this and left, but the fourth, a doctor, insisted that he couldn’t leave because he had to treat patients the next day at a hospital in Louisville.
The rest, unfortunately for United Airlines, is history. As the staff grew more insistent, the doctor firmly refused, and eventually city aviation security officers boarded the plane and physically dragged the doctor away. The doctor resisted, resulting in violence, retaliation and bleeding, and the entire incident was filmed by a passenger with a phone, right up to the moment that doctor, now visibly injured, bleeding and disoriented, attempted to reboard the plane.
The incident sparked outrage around the world, and made people sit up and take notice. In the particular, the brutal treatment of a doctor who had paid for his seat and was physically dragged and assaulted when employees arriving at the last minute took priority sparked a lot of debate and argument. One thing that was uppermost in people’s minds was, “Is this even legal?”
And the answer is “yes, up to a point, but United Airlines and Chicago City Aviation Security crossed that point.”
Business & Security Still Matter
Obviously, in a post-9/11 world, the safety of passengers is paramount. In that sense, any passenger that looks to be a security risk and is acting in a disruptive or suspicious manner, especially in the minutes leading up to actual take off, can be detained for security reasons.
When it comes to the selection of passengers and having them disembark even though they have already paid for a ticket, surprisingly, the law is on the airline’s side with this. Although many airlines are now revising their overbooking and passenger disembarkation policies in the wake of the dramatic April incident, at that time, airlines actually did have legal protection.
Things change a lot, however, with the type of methods used to remove a passenger.
Force Is Not Always Justified
In the case of flight 3411, it was not the actual staff of the airline that removed the passenger. In some ways, that would have actually “simplified” legal matters, since airline staff do not have the same type of legal protection as law enforcement officers. In this particular case it was the city aviation security that performed the act, and, as security officers with the power to enforce order, they have a bit more protection.
However, the term excessive force is the watch word here. Neither an airline staff member, a security officer, or even a police officer can legally use “excessive force” in order to resolve a situation. Excessive force is something that must eventually be determined in a trial, but you can imagine what it is exactly just from the name alone. It is the use of more than necessary force in order to accomplish a goal.
For example, firmly but gently escorting a loud, violent, drunk patron at a bar or club would be considered a use of appropriate force. Punching the drunk until he was unconscious, continuing to beat him even while not a threat and throwing him out the door, only to continue the beating in the street, would be excessive.
In the case of the flight 3411 incident, the doctor was physically dragged off, and suffered from injuries with bleeding and a split lip.
The Resolution
It almost goes without saying that doctor Dao, sought the guidance of a personal injury lawyer and proceeded to move forward with what would be required for a personal injury lawsuit. However, the dramatic nature of the case, combined with the footage, which was already quite damning as evidence, and the public outcry against United Airlines itself quickly brought some resolution.
No amounts have been disclosed, but United Airlines took full responsibility for the incident and agreed to settle with Dr. Dao out of court, rather than have a long, protracted and undoubtedly negative court case that could only result in more bad PR for the company.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where an airline has treated you badly, and even resorted to violence to get you off the plane when you yourself were not retaliating, get a personal injury lawyer immediately. They have violated your rights and overstepped their legal boundaries.