Refusing to admit wrongdoing in our litigious society is no surprise.
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Woman in wheelchair forced to crawl into airplane to get to her seat
- Thread starter ksen
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Refusing to admit wrongdoing in our litigious society is no surprise.
American Airlines did admit to wrongdoing.
While I do have a problem with some of the rules for the disabled (any law that says "reasonable accommodation" and provides no guidelines for determining reasonable should be taken out and shot!) I don't find the rules for wheelchair support unreasonable in most cases. They've developed workable procedures, it's just sometimes the humans don't live up to the procedures.
ronburgundy
Contributor
I am not referring to any specific regulations since we don't know which ones AA admits to violating. I was saying that simply knowing that AA admitted to being in violation of some regulation, doesn't mean they did anything unethical or unreasonable. For example, it would be perfectly reasonable for airlines to require that people needing special assistance especially and entirely different means of boarding) to be at the gate at a time that is slightly earlier than the standard cut-off time for passengers who can simply walk onto the plane themselves. Yet, it wouldn't be surprising if their were a law that made such a reasonable policy illegal. Thus if an able-bodied person would be allowed to run onto a plane 5 seconds before they close the door, then a person requiring assistance would have to be allowed on, even if that would significantly delay the plane (which could easily be the case given the logistics of ramp availability, and getting the certified personnel, etc., plus the fact that push off delays can wind up being 2-3 fold longer take-off delays, due to losing one's place in the take-off cue.)
IOW, it was possible that the regulation they violated said that if they would have let anyone on the plane at that moment, then they must somehow assist her onto the plane with a ramp, no matter the cost and inconvenience to all the other passengers. Maybe the regulation they violated was more basic and reasonable than that. I was just saying that it is largely meaningless to note that violated some regulation, unless we know exactly what that regulation is and what the actual option were at the time (noting that claims that they should have just picked up this 250 pound woman are unreasonable).
Alcoholic Actuary
Veteran Member
For the most part, liability insurance does not cover punitive damages. The whole point of punishment awards is to punish the wrongdoer, not the wrongdoer's insurance company. Furthermore, punitive damages are typically awarded by a judge or jury, not requested or submitted by the plaintiff. Do we know for a fact that this woman asked for a $2.5m award or was $2.5m an amount listed by a journalist who had done research on similar cases and compared awards in the past? (words to look for are 'AA could pay as much as $xx in punitive damages' vs. 'the plaintiff filed a lawsuit seeking $xx').
It is a feature of our legal system that any punitive damages, once determined, are awarded to the plaintiff along with the liability judgment. In this case the insurance company will likely try to settle for some amount well south of $75k - a curious amount that is almost equal to the insurer's expense of going to a quick trial and having to pay a claim in addition, so a settlement would benefit both parties. American will pay the punitive damages - whatever they turn out to be.
aa
NobleSavage
Veteran Member
My hunch is that the plaintiff's attorney said if you give us $2.5m we will drop the lawsuit. They will dick around with discovery for a year and go back and for on the numbers before trial.
Some places offer punitive damages insurance. I don't know the ins and outs of it; I just know that it is a service which has been advertised out there in the wide world. I agree it is counterproductive to the aim of punitive measures, but I'd wager different regions have different policies in place regarding insuring punitive damages. Specific to this case, I don't know if it is at all relevant.
I don't actually know. Stories like this are always shoddily reported. The story in the OP states the following:
http://abc7.com/travel/woman-in-whee...-plane/774450/
Another source states the following:
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/wheelchair-bound-woman-forced-to-crawl-onto-plane-121027355892.html
I am posting to this issue as a distraction between tasks, so it is more than possible I have overlooked something in the stories.
Alcoholic Actuary
Veteran Member
This is probably true. The plaintiff's attorney probably has a decent handle on what judges in his jurisdiction are handing out for punitive damage awards and would factor them into a settlement request. However, I believe that once it goes to trial, the plaintiff doesn't get to request an amount for punitive damages.
aa
Alcoholic Actuary
Veteran Member
There is such a thing but it's mostly a small business or sole proprietor protection. As I said, 'for the most part' it is not a covered loss. (I'm speaking only on my experience as a global casualty reinsurance treaty pricing actuary - I've examined hundreds of thousands of professional, D&O, E&O, and EPLI claims and never found a covered punitive damages claim. I'm not a lawyer. But if American Airlines actually does have such a policy, I want to meet the actuary who priced it and see if he has change for a $9 bill).
I tend to believe the second source, where the lawsuit actually outlines the damage amounts. Of course there are more than just general damages - there's medical payments and pain and suffering awards (if applicable). Also, the first source mentions seeking a settlement. I do believe the attorney would factor in recent punitive damage awards when requesting a settlement amount, but that doesn't necessarily mean she'll get anywhere near that. I do get confused at the last part - seeking between 6-8m if it goes to trial? I think those are just posturing numbers.
aa
NobleSavage
Veteran Member
Exactly.
That is a cool title! It's right up there with international man of mystery
And since this was a connecting flight they certainly should have known she needed it because she needed it on the earlier leg. They dropped the ball.
Seriously doubt there would be a trial before a judge. A judge would know the law, and the law requires a plaintiff to mitigate damages. Thus to a judge the damages in this case would be something like the cost of having to take a later flight.
The game here is to get an irrational jury willing to fork over large sums of money regardless of the law because the plaintiff is sympathetic and the defendant is a big mean rich corporation who can afford it. Or, perhaps even more to the point, to extract a large settlement because the company fears an irrational jury.
Alcoholic Actuary
Veteran Member
Thanks, but I promise it isn't exciting at all (unless you like solving probability problems all day).
aa
Jimmy Higgins
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They admitted to not offering reasonable access to the plane (ie no ramp). Did they admit to an employee doing what was alleged?
ronburgundy
Contributor
And do you know every single aspect of that regulation and every single aspect of all other regulations that might impact the logistics of how this regulation influences how and when passengers are boarded the impact on delays? No, you don't. The requirement to "provide entry level boarding" tells us very little, because that is also part of the potential unreasonable regulation I described in which the airline must always providing entry level boarding even when a passenger fails to arrive at the gate by a time required to avoid a major delay in departure. IOW, this or some other regulation might prohibit the airline from having reasonably different cutoff boarding times for people that need a ramp, due to the notably longer time it can take to board such passengers. Thus, when combined with the ramp requirement, one can be in violation of the rule without actually doing anything unethical or unreasonable, and in fact while being more ethical and reasonable than the regulation allows due it failure to consider the welfare of other passengers.
Again, the facts of this case might show unreasonable actions by the airline employee. I simply pointed out that merely being in violation of a disability accommodation regulation does not inform us about whether the action was unreasonable or unethical, because the full context of all relevant regulations and how they constrain what the airline can and cannot do will determine whether a violation was also an unethical and unreasonable act.
credoconsolans
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But of course, airlines don't really give a shit as to why you're late.
I understand the airline could have been more helpful, but why did the woman allow herself to be subjected to the humiliation?
Why did she AGREE to crawl, when she could have just said,"Fuck you, I'm not crawling, book me on the next flight"?
I don't care if she arrived 10 seconds before the gate closed. It was a connecting flight, they already knew entry level boarding was required. Her late arrival has no bearing on this.
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To some extent they do--miss a flight because they made you late and they owe you a flight. Miss it because you were simply late and they have no such obligation.
You're assuming a later flight wouldn't cause her to miss something that mattered.
ronburgundy
Contributor
Make an effort to comprehend what I actually said. Here it is for the third time: I do and already did concede that the specific facts of this case may show that the airline acted unreasonably and poorly. Ksen made a big deal out of the fact that AA admitted to violating a regulation, as though that is some smoking gun proving egregious wrongdoing. My reply was that violating a regulation is not itself informative of whether their actions were unreasonable or unethical, because as my example scenario illustrates, a person could be reasonably denied "level-entry boarding" due to a notable delay it would cause, and yet that act would violate the regulation. That doesn't imply this was true in her case, only that violating that regulation does not mean the airline acted unreasonably or unethically.
As to the details of her situation, it does sound like the airline should have accommodated her. However, you are wrong that the connecting flight issue makes the timing of her arrival irrelevant. Airlines have no responsibility to accommodate late arrivals due to a late connection. It is the passengers fault if they schedule a tight connection that cannot allow for common delays. The only way in which her late connection is relevant is that the gate attendants should have been notified of it and thus had time to prepare the ramp. However, lots of other facts matter too, such as were the personnel that were required to put the ramp in place available at the time or were they doing other things like putting ramps in place for other planes? Imagine your hypothetical were she got there 10 seconds before the gate closed. If the personnel were not available and the only way to get the ramp in place was a wait that could cost a 30 minute delay in take off, should they have delayed the plane and caused many other passengers to miss connections? IF so, then why shouldn't they be required to delay all planes for up to 30 minutes to accommodate late connections for anyone, including able-bodied persons? Once again, I am not claiming that her situation would have caused such a delay. I am saying that the delay that such accommodations can cause is highly relevant to what is reasonable and ethical, even if they are not factored into the regulations. Late connections do not change the fact that such accommodations can cause delays, if the person is not at the gate at the start of the boarding process, and cause much more of a delay than a person who can simply run onto the plane at the last second. Thus, in order to make a judgment of ethics or reasonableness it is neccessary to know the specific details of why the ramp was not in place already for her and what it would have taken to put it in place when she got there. The fact that the airline violated a regulation that probably takes no account of these factors doesn't tell us much. In sum, I am merely arguing that more info is required than the fact that the plane had not left the gate, that they knew she was coming, and that a regulation was violated. Because even with all of those facts, it is still plausible that putting the ramp in place could cause a notable delay in take-off, and it is unreasonable to require such delays to accommodate a single passenger who, for whatever reason, was not at the gate in time to avoid such a delay.
Apparently you haven't flown much as you don't understand the rules.
So long as you are on a single ticket they are obligated to get you to your final destination even if you miss a flight due to their fault. (And that doesn't even have to be a missed connection--long ago we missed a flight because they told us the wrong flight time and this was before the internet where we could check such things. They're only not on the hook if you somehow booked a connection below the minimum time.) How much help you'll get depends on the reason--I've come very close to missing a connection due to weather (2 hours isn't enough when you're going through SFO in the morning), since that wasn't their fault their only obligation would be a seat on the next flight with space. Had it been due to something under their control they would have also owed us a hotel and meals until we got that seat.
As for the ramp--they knew they were going to need it, therefore it should have been in place. There should be no issue of putting it in place when she shows up.