SWA Lawsuit
 

I just heard on the news tonight that 4 passengers are suing SWA for putting them in danger. The lawyers are pushing for it to become a class action lawsuit on behalf of everyone who has flown on SWA for the past 6 years.

Any have any information on this?

-Fatty

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=173334

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Four passengers have filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, saying the company broke its contract with travelers by carrying them on planes that missed safety inspections over a period of about six years.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Birmingham, seeks class-action status on claims that include breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and negligent and reckless operation of an aircraft.

Lew Garrison, a Birmingham lawyer who represents the passengers, said Tuesday the class could include hundreds of thousands of people who traveled on Southwest planes from January 2002 through last month.

Garrison, in a telephone interview, said the lawsuit primarily seeks reimbursement for tickets for those flights on the grounds that the Dallas-based airline did not comply with government regulations and did not honor its contract with its customers.

The suit also seeks punitive damages on one count that claims Southwest behaved negligently in not grounding planes that had not been deemed airworthy in compliance with government standards, Garrison said.

The amount of damages was not specified.

Marilee McInnis, a spokeswoman for Southwest, said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

"Fortuitously, of course, nothing happened, everyone arrived safely at their destinations," Garrison said. "But that doesn't change the fact that Southwest did not comply with its obligations."

The "Contract of Carriage" on Southwest's Web site states: "All transportation is sold and all carriage is performed subject to compliance with all applicable laws and governmental regulations, including those of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Transportation Security Administration, many of which are not specified herein but are nonetheless binding on Carrier and all passengers."

The lawsuit claims Southwest violated this contract by not complying with FAA airworthiness directives "to correct pressing safety risks which might not be detected through regular maintenance." It says the FAA requires planes that do not meet these directives to be grounded until compliance is reached.

Federal regulators said last month that Southwest operated nearly 60,000 flights in 2006 and 2007 using 46 planes that had missed inspections for possible fatigue-related cracking on the fuselage areas.

The airline flew another 1,451 flights with the same planes in March 2007, even after discovering that it had failed to conduct the required inspections, the FAA charged. The federal agency proposed a $10.2 million penalty; all but $200,000 of the proposed penalty dealt with those later flights.

Southwest said six of the planes had small cracks that required repairs.

The FAA had ordered airlines in September 2004 to conduct inspections of some areas of the fuselage on some older models of Boeing 737 aircraft once every 4,500 flights.

According to the lawsuit, the Transportation Department's inspector general said in March 2007 that Southwest had 21 key inspections that were overdue by at least five years. Gayle Douglas, a Birmingham lawyer for the passengers, said that is why the lawsuit covers flights back to 2002.

Garrison said he did not know of any other lawsuits against Southwest over the missed inspections.

Lawyers are scum.

First of all the passengers will need to PROVE they actually flew on one of the planes that wasn't inspected. If they can't do that, then I see no way they will successfully recover any damages for their claims.

The sad part is that they will probably recieve some sort of settlement just to make this go away.

Some people have it in them and some dont. When I slip and fall on a wet floor in the mall I get up as quick as possible and walk it off hoping that no one saw. When the "other" types slip and fall they cause as big a scene as possible and do not move an inch until law enforcement, an ambulance, every manager in sight and their lawyer is contacted.

I would imagine that if a person bought a ticket with a credit card (most of people probably do), they could electronically figure out the day of flight and which tails were flown using the maintenance logs. Of course, as it already has been said, SWA might not have to prove anything -- they'll probably settle this out of court.

New question. Isn't the PIC responsible if he/she flies an airplane that isn't air worthy? I only bring this up because of sutuations that I know of at other carriers. On one such instance, an airplane was missing a required fire bottle and the FAA went after all of the pilots that had flown the aircraft.

Just curious if the pilots could not possibly be wrapped up into this. This is going to spell trouble for ALL airlines, not just SWA.

-Fatty

Assuming the PIC operated IAW the FAA approved means for determining airworthiness (whatever the ops manual says), he/she should be okay. It isn't the pilot's job to stand over the mechanics and confirm the work is done.

Years back, a major metropolitan transit system bus driver took a corner too sharply and hit a stoplight. The bus had 8 passengers on board.

The next day, over 30 people showed up to file claims against the transit authority.....

What is wrong with people any more? Can't they just enjoy life for what it is? They should thank God they can go see grandma after two hours of flying instead of two days of driving. I really think our legal system has become a major embarassment to our country. Just watch Gloria Alred on TV. What a shyster. People like her just solidify my position.:rolleyes:

what a BS lawsuit. Some scum sucking lawyer trying to make a buck of course I am sure the liberal democratic trial lawyers association is all over this stuff.

All lawyers aren't scum. APC has Vagabond, and she is not scum. Perhaps the statement should read, "All lawyers except Vagabond are scum" - that I could agree with whole-heartedly.

Class action lawsuits are a scam. The biggest class action firm, Millberg Weiss, imploded because most of the senior partners have plead guilty to paying plaintiffs extra to initiate lawsuits - basically bribing people to join the class. These partners will be doing time. Another major class action attorney, Dickie Scruggs in Mississippi, is going to be doing hard time for his involvement in trying to bribe a judge to help him screw over another attorney.

Class action suits only benefit the attorneys - the actual "victims" get little to nothing. They should be outlawed, or at least highly regulated.

LOL...okay we can give vagabond a pass.... as for Scruggs interestingly enough I have met Mr. Scruggs.... and he is the consummate scum sucking lawyer albeit a very good one.... Also being very familiar with the case.... money says he does 18 months or less in a federal white color institution ...no HARD time for some one of his ilk.

Is that a white COLLAR institution????:D

Michael Bolton: We get caught laundering money, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to federal POUND ME IN THE @$$ prison. :eek:
Samir: I don't want to go to ANY prison! :(

I am amazed that the government will step in to all manners of things, but they have yet to hold congressional hearings (to my knowledge) about Class Action suits.

How much money have these things drained out of the economy? Would be interested in hearing from Vagabond as to whether Class Action suits have ever served a legitimate purpose, or if they have always been primarily for the benefit of attorneys.

yes...collar..... :)

MX releases the aircraft to operations. So if the Airworthiness Releases were signed by MX (which they were) it's on MX.

so let me get this straight.. in essence these people are suing because they MAY have gotten hurt, and so they should be compensated irregardless of the FACT that they did NOT get hurt in any way????????!!!!!!!!
:eek::confused:

I know someone who has severe peanut allergies. Therefore, I am going to file a class action lawsuit against ALL airlines, because the thought of what could possibly happen if he eats a peanut on a plane, has caused me great emotional distress.

Thanks, stinson, for the support. I usually don’t comment anymore on “legal” threads since almost all of them on APC consists of unproductive posts like “all lawyers are scum” or “all lawyers deserve to die,” but I’ll give my two cents to correct some misunderstandings.

First of all, let me say that lawyers are like pilots and doctors and engineers – there are good ones and there are bad ones. It takes only one bad apple to make the rest look bad. Unfortunately, there are lots of bad ones out there. I preside over certain lawyer discipline cases and see more than my fair share of lawyers gone bad. However, it would be inaccurate to say that the plaintiff lawyers in this SWA suit are scum. There has been no evidence that these lawyers went looking for potential plaintiffs, much like personal injury lawyers listen to police scanners for accidents and run out to the accident site with their business cards.

Class action lawsuits are complicated litigation procedural devices, with their own inherent pros and cons, and those filed in federal courts are all governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 23 which states the following:

Rule 23. Class Actions
(a) Prerequisites.
One or more members of a class may sue or be sued as representative parties on behalf of all members only if:
(1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable,
(2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class,
(3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class; and
(4) the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.
(b) Types of Class Actions.
A class action may be maintained if Rule 23(a) is satisfied and if:
(1) prosecuting separate actions by or against individual class members would create a risk of:
(A) inconsistent or varying adjudications with respect to individual class members that would establish incompatible standards of conduct for the party opposing the class; or
(B) adjudications with respect to individual class members that, as a practical matter, would be dispositive of the interests of the other members not parties to the individual adjudications or would substantially impair or impede their ability to protect their interests;
(2) the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole; or
(3) the court finds that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy. The matters pertinent to these findings include:
(A) the class members' interests in individually controlling the prosecution or defense of separate actions;
(B) the extent and nature of any litigation concerning the controversy already begun by or against class members;
(C) the desirability or undesirability of concentrating the litigation of the claims in the particular forum; and
(D) the likely difficulties in managing a class action.
In other words, lots of hoops to jump through before getting a case certified as a class action. It is true that in many cases, the lawyers get a large fee. That is one of the criticisms of class action suits. Members of the suit end up with small, paltry “awards.”

Now I haven’t seen the SWA suit and everything I know about it comes from the media (and we know how they are sometimes in accuracy and slant). It appears that the passengers are alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligent and reckless operation of an aircraft. These are all very common causes of action in a class action lawsuit. They are not claiming that they could have been harmed, but that SWA breached its contract (the “Contract of Carriage”) with them. The contract with passengers say that SWA will fly them to their destinations on aircraft that is in compliance with federal regulations. We now know that the FAA has looked into its maintenance and/or maintenance records and found them wanting.

I just scratched the surface on this topic, but I hope it helps in understanding the basics of a class action lawsuit. If anyone has a more specific question, please send me a PM. When I read that thread of the media quoting a couple of APC posters, I have become wary of getting into details.

....getting rich the American way. Just sue someone.

Theoretically next thing is that a lawyer could sit on the ground with an aircraft radio and listen for a pilot that missed a vector or altitude and then sue, as the pilot was not operating the aircraft IAW FAA rules.

Better yet, they could simply demand the government produce all of the NASA reports from the last seven years and sue any airline/pilot that did anything wrong within the statute of limitations which I think is about 7 years. Think about how many self-reported incidents could be construed as negligent and reckless by a lawyer when a jury would be generally clueless about aviation.

Thanks for the thoughtful post Vagabond. Have you, off the top of your head, any knowledge of a class-action suit that was truly useful? My understanding of this is that most class-actions end up with the attorneys making most of the money, with the members of the class making very little - but that is my laymen knowledge and I would welcome being corrected. Also, the actions of Scruggs and Millberg Weiss DO taint the legal profession, at least in the class-action arena, for me - a couple of REALLY bad apples.

Yes, SWA did violate the "Contract of Carriage" perhaps, but the other poster who stated about altitude deviations also makes an excellent point - that is also a violation of the Contract of Carriage. At some point though, common sense should take over in my opinion. If you weren't damaged in any way, and you did in fact arrive at your destination unscathed...where are your economic damages?

Don't necessarily need to have economic damages caused by not making it to the destination
I was emotionally scarred by the realization that 3 years ago if I had been in group A I could have wound up in a seat next to a cracked fuselage and been ripped out of the plane like that Aloha FA.

And now I'm so scared to get on a plane that my company fired me because I just refuse to get on one, and I don't think it should matter that all I'm doing is cleaning the plane on the ground. SWA is so unsafe anything might happen and I have a constitutional right to work in a safe environment. So that's why I'm suing for 300 million. My lawyer wanted to sue for 1 billion, but I'm no idiot, why try for 1 when I have a right to 300.


Next I'm going to sue McDonalds. I heard their coffee was extremely hot once and the thought of having that hot coffee scald the family jewels has me so upset that now I can't even get breakfast to go there anymore, instead I have to go way out of my way to go though BK's drive-up. And that has made me late for my new job as a cashier at Wal-mart. And my manager has absolutely no sympathy for why I have to be late everyday.

So, I think I'll sue Wal-mart next for not accomodating my disability.

I have a right to work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Flight_243

I wonder how many people are going to sue American? I'm guessing their Contract of Carriage has a similar statement.

Not trying to defend the people or the lawyers involved in this litigation but the folks at SWA screwed up big time. After the fine from the FAA and some litigation, bet this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Well, at least for a couple of years.

Highly insightful, Boiler. Please consider contributing more often.

Personally, in a situation like this, I feel the people shouldn't be the ones suing; rather, it should be the government. The FAA has already fined SWA, but a judgement "for the people" could be used to make sure this doesn't happen again ... at SWA or anywheres else.

These people don't deserve any money. Since they weren't damaged, the worst I could see is that they get a free ticket since the first one was considered breached.

What scares me is, a jury is going to hammer SWA if this actually gets to court. And it will set a precident (spelling?) for future cases against all airlines.

-Fatty

I want a class action against all litigation attorneys for the stress/annoyance they put in everyone’s life!! Who’s onboard????

Count me in, but we'll have to have fools* for attorneys

*us