Santa Barbara Woman Wins $27M In Airline Suit

(AP) EL PASO, Texas A Santa Barbara woman has been awarded more than $27 million in damages in a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines.

Samantha Carrington alleges she was racially profiled when the airline accused her of assaulting a flight attendant and interfering with a flight crew.

Carrington sued the Dallas-based carrier for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

According to court records, three flight attendants said Carrington, a naturalized citizen from Iran, became verbally abusive during the flight, grabbed the arm of one flight attendant and threatened to go to the cockpit if the captain was not summoned.

Carrington denies those allegations and says she was the one mistreated during the short flight.

A Southwest spokeswoman says the decision will be appealed.

$27 million!!!!!!!!! ARE YOU JOKING???

The most this woman deserves is $27 dollars and a bag of peanuts!

I hope this verdict or at least the ridiculous amount gets overturned.

Lawyers have destroyed this country! We need to rewrite the entire legal code before I get a violation for parking my horse in front of the county courthouse.

She deserves to be in jail.

And the frivilous lawsuits will go on.....

That's what Southwest gets for racially profiling this Middle Eastern woman. Yeah, right.

I'm sure she and her attorneys are laughing all the way to the bank.

And the other half of the money is probably going to Bin Laden.

Man, Southwest has some pretty ****ty lawyers.

Does it surpise you though? Most people in this country have felt the decline in airline customer service, and many are simply tired of dealing with ****ed off employees, surly FA's, and rude boarding agents that just don't care anymore.

We all have seen a bit of it, and odds are we've even been one of those employees from time to time. I can't count the number of times that I've heard or seen another pilot say something to the effect of "I don't care if they make their connections- I just get paid to fly the plane", or "Not my job... I don't get paid enough to do that."

With the way that the average joe gets treated, the average joes on this jury finally had the opportunity to "stick it to the airlines" that they feel have disserviced them so. Whether it's right or wrong, it certainly isn't surprising.

Truth is there are a bunch of *******s out there. Employees and passengers alike. Unfortunately as a passenger, the odds are stacked against you, so most of the time you just have to shut up and endure or you'll get slapped with "interference with a crewmember."

That said, I do think that 27 million is absolutely ridiculous. The insane thing is that this lady would probably fly SWA again if they let her, simply because it's probably the cheapest airline to fly.