Did United Airlines have any other choice than to eject that passenger?

[J842P]

No, the report said he hit his head against an armrest because of the use of force. LP is rejecting that as a realistic outcome. As usual, he is blaming the victim as the only possible realistic outcome of the encounter.

He refused to come peacefully so they pulled and hit one of the myriad of bad things in the space. Excessive force would have been shooting the guy for not moving. Maybe they should have tazed him instead???

^^^ A Libertarian, folks.

 

[coloradoatheist]

He refused to come peacefully so they pulled and hit one of the myriad of bad things in the space. Excessive force would have been shooting the guy for not moving. Maybe they should have tazed him instead???

ANY force used against him would be excessive, Considering the guy had a right, legally and morally to be in the seat that he paid for .

In Illinois you can't resist even an unlawful arrest. Only if excessive force is used, but pulling from the seat is not that.

 

[Elixir]

downgrade. He was totally unresponsive, so I observed "someone could go postal over that kind of treatment". He freaked out, threatened to have me arrested. I was pissed - "You're going to arrest me for ... WHAT? Using the word "postal" in an airport? THAT'S customer service!" He picked up the phone like he was calling security. I sat down in the gate area, waiting to see what would happen. Nothing happened.
That was my first inkling that UAL didn't give a shit about their customers' experience. The beaten doc just got the latest update to that policy...

Sorry, but you made a veiled threat there.

A threat would have been "I might go postal". I was clearly referring to the fact that such treatment might piss someone ELSE off enough to 'go postal'. He just didn't like the phrase. Apparently, after due consideration he knew that, or he wouldn't have feigned calling security.

 

[zorq]

ANY force used against him would be excessive, Considering the guy had a right, legally and morally to be in the seat that he paid for .

In Illinois you can't resist even an unlawful arrest. Only if excessive force is used, but pulling from the seat is not that.

Wrong. According to the USSC you have the right to defend yourself TO THE DEATH against unlawful arrest.

And last I checked, Illinois is part of the USA.

 

[coloradoatheist]

He refused to come peacefully so they pulled and hit one of the myriad of bad things in the space. Excessive force would have been shooting the guy for not moving. Maybe they should have tazed him instead???

^^^ A Libertarian, folks.

There are means to deal with this peacefully. You go with the officer and sue the airlines for breach of contract.

 

[ksen]

Weird how property rights can be discarded so quickly by property rights advocates when it suits them.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

[LordKiran]

^^^ A Libertarian, folks.

There are means to deal with this peacefully. You go with the officer and sue the airlines for breach of contract.

If you leave voluntarily, you forfeit the right to sue, or at least make the suit far more difficult than it would be otherwise. Or to put it another way:

The airline also had the option to back down and refused to do so, inciting violence against a customer by a third party, when that was not strictly speaking 'necessary'

Reminder: Necessary is a word that means "There is no other option." Others have demonstrated that there were in fact, other options.

 

[LordKiran]

Yet you seem to think you know more about what they can do than they do.[1] If they can't get it right, how can you--an outsider who doesn't even know the applicable rules--hope to do better?[2]

1. Mighty hypocritical of you to lecture me on speaking on matters I supposedly know nothing about. Tell me, is there anything in the statement you quoted that was demonstrably incorrect? If so, then demonstrate my incorrectness. If not, then sit down.

2. Well I have the benefit of hindsight, the perspective of an outward observer looking in, and am a decent human being with a reasonable penchant for conflict and problem resolution.

 

[bilby]

There were other "options" -- but the least costly was to remove 4 passengers.

Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that this option was even necessary.

And there's a metric shit-ton of evidence that it was amongst the most costly options available.

The least costly option would be to have a free market, wherein the airline offers increasing levels of compensation until the four seats required become available by mutual agreement between the parties without the treat or use of force.

I find it surprising that a self professed libertarian appears to oppose this position; it's rather like watching a Christian argue that Jesus wasn't the messiah.

 

[Elixir]

Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that this option was even necessary.

And there's a metric shit-ton of evidence that it was amongst the most costly options available.

Indeed. It has been pointed out that they'd be money ahead right now had they chartered the doc his own private jet.
The word for what UAL did, is "STUPID", even if it was not criminal.

 

[bilby]

Unless you can prove otherwise, we should assume the company has the best guidelines in place, for the sake of minimizing costs.

They applied their policies, and it has cost them a fucking massive fortune already, with more cost almost certainly coming.

If direct observation isn't proof enough for you, then nothing is.

When you drop a brick on your toe, you cease to need assumptions about whether or not bricks are affected by gravity.

 

[coloradoatheist]

In Illinois you can't resist even an unlawful arrest. Only if excessive force is used, but pulling from the seat is not that.

Wrong. According to the USSC you have the right to defend yourself TO THE DEATH against unlawful arrest.

And last I checked, Illinois is part of the USA.

It is interesting reading, but in Illinois no. They passed a statue saying that if the police officer used no excessive force then you can't resist the arrest. The Illinois Supreme court upheld the statue and the case it involved. The Supreme court original decision a 120+ years ago also had some othr qualifications. What recent Supreme court case?

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There are means to deal with this peacefully. You go with the officer and sue the airlines for breach of contract.

If you leave voluntarily, you forfeit the right to sue, or at least make the suit far more difficult than it would be otherwise. Or to put it another way:

The airline also had the option to back down and refused to do so, inciting violence against a customer by a third party, when that was not strictly speaking 'necessary'

Reminder: Necessary is a word that means "There is no other option." Others have demonstrated that there were in fact, other options.

I diisagree. You can leave and later argue that they were in breach of contract. You wouldn't sign anything that said you won't sue.

 

[bilby]

Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that this option was even necessary.

Maybe it wasn't "necessary" -- but it was the least costly option.* The company would have chosen a less costly option if they could have figured one out at that time. (Maybe by now they have figured out a cheaper option.)

*It was least costly, minus the subsequent lawsuit and bad publicity cost, which they could not have predicted because usually passengers comply with the lawful procedure and do not put up a fuss and scream and make a scene, which the company should not have to anticipate from civilized humans.

Ahh. So the policy is fine; it's the customers that are broken.

I won a fortune on the Melbourne Cup, but the bookies refused to pay. I picked the winner (minus the horses that finished faster, which I couldn't have predicted), so they should pay up.

Because when reality doesn't match expectations, it's reality that is wrong.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Weird how property rights can be discarded so quickly by property rights advocates when it suits them.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

Property rights, if we are going with property rights it would be Uniteds property rights.

 

[TSwizzle]

There are means to deal with this peacefully. You go with the officer and sue the airlines for breach of contract.

If you leave voluntarily, you forfeit the right to sue, or at least make the suit far more difficult than it would be otherwise.

Sue for what though ? Lots of people get bumped off flights, do any of them sue and what are the results of the suits ?

 

[Keith&Co.]

A policeman doesn't need to pull out his phone and google all the cases regarding common carrier especially since the CoC provides multiple ways for them to get the passenger off. The issue of this is what definition of boarding applies and a cop doesn't need to know contracts to know for sure.

Well, there was no life-threatening emergency. He was not a terrorist. He was not threatening anyone. The people-who-weren't-really-police should have made sure of the situation before getting violent.
The airline manager should have made the situation a LOT clearer before calling for people-who-weren't-really-police.

As LP pointed out, you can't stall with a cop sayin gthat you are talking to your lawyer.

If you don't really know what you're arresting a man for, maybe you should pause if there's a chance he's got a lawyer on the line.
If you don't really have the authority to arrest someone, maybe you should pause.

When i first joined the Navy, one of the conditions of deadly force was 'when so directed by competent authority.'
They decided there's a problem with that, with just blindly following the orders of the senior man in the room. That condition went away.
I'm guessing security people are going to hesitate just a teeny bit in the future, probably to their profit, if there's no clear and present danger.

 

[ksen]

Even posters at Free Republic agree that United was in the wrong.

But they, like us, still have those 2 or 3 holdouts.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Well, there was no life-threatening emergency. He was not a terrorist. He was not threatening anyone. The people-who-weren't-really-police should have made sure of the situation before getting violent.
The airline manager should have made the situation a LOT clearer before calling for people-who-weren't-really-police.

As LP pointed out, you can't stall with a cop sayin gthat you are talking to your lawyer.

If you don't really know what you're arresting a man for, maybe you should pause if there's a chance he's got a lawyer on the line.
If you don't really have the authority to arrest someone, maybe you should pause.

When i first joined the Navy, one of the conditions of deadly force was 'when so directed by competent authority.'
They decided there's a problem with that, with just blindly following the orders of the senior man in the room. That condition went away.
I'm guessing security people are going to hesitate just a teeny bit in the future, probably to their profit, if there's no clear and present danger.

I agree with you on the pause part. If they were not cops and can't, then they have to call the real cops. But no, cops in general do not have to wait for you to call a lawyer to get an opinion.

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Even posters at Free Republic agree that United was in the wrong.

But they, like us, still have those 2 or 3 holdouts.

Haven't been on that board for a while. I think most people get tired just arguing in circles while this board is more active.

 

[LordKiran]

Wrong. According to the USSC you have the right to defend yourself TO THE DEATH against unlawful arrest.

And last I checked, Illinois is part of the USA.

It is interesting reading, but in Illinois no. They passed a statue saying that if the police officer used no excessive force then you can't resist the arrest. The Illinois Supreme court upheld the statue and the case it involved. The Supreme court original decision a 120+ years ago also had some othr qualifications. What recent Supreme court case?

- - - Updated - - -

There are means to deal with this peacefully. You go with the officer and sue the airlines for breach of contract.

If you leave voluntarily, you forfeit the right to sue, or at least make the suit far more difficult than it would be otherwise. Or to put it another way:

The airline also had the option to back down and refused to do so, inciting violence against a customer by a third party, when that was not strictly speaking 'necessary'

Reminder: Necessary is a word that means "There is no other option." Others have demonstrated that there were in fact, other options.

I diisagree. You can leave and later argue that they were in breach of contract. You wouldn't sign anything that said you won't sue.

Not if you take the compensation, duh.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Not if you take the compensation, duh.

Yes and no. That $1350 is the amount you agreed to for a breach in contract, or it's probably less since it sounded like a cheaper flight. So you can still sue and get extra if you believe you entitlled to more, but I think you do take the money you get.