Another family is suing American Airlines after their 9 year old daughter was recorded by a flight attendant using a bathroom during their flight.
This flight attendant has been arrested and charged with taking video of five young girls on separate flights as they go to the lavatory. This was discovered after a 14 year old girl reported being asked to wait to use the lav, and then invited in where she found an iPhone taped to the toilet to watch her.
The 9 year old learned about the incident when FBI officers showed up at their home, since they’d found more content on the crewmember’s phone than just the one incident that was first reported. The family had flown from Austin to Los Angeles “for a gymnastics competition and visit to Disneyland.”
It felt like we were living in a nightmare when the FBI showed up on our doorstep to tell us that our daughter had been secretly filmed by an American Airlines flight attendant during a family trip to Disneyland… Since then, our daughter has struggled with fear and anxiety. We are doing everything we can to support her during this traumatic time. An important part of our family’s healing is making sure that the flight attendant and American Airlines are held accountable for what happened to our daughter. We hope that this lawsuit is the first step in making sure nothing like this ever happens to another family.
Photo of iPhone In Lavatory Of 14 Year Old’s Flight, Credit: Lewis & Llewellyn LLP
According to the FBI, “still images and videos of the girl’s face, unclothed buttocks and genitalia were found on the iCloud account of” the flight attendant. The FBI’s investigation found that this 9 year old wasn’t the youngest girl filmed by the flight attendant.
According to American Airlines in response to the first lawsuit, they’re “not liable for acts or crimes of its employees” even during the course of their duties. And, presumably, buying a ticket on American Airlines carries no implied promise that you won’t be filmed naked in the lavatory so it’s not like they broke any contractual obligation to the customer?
An on duty crewmember in a position of authority, placed there for passenger safety by the airline, committed a crime against the customer. Seeking to dismiss the claims of passengers after an incident like this, rather than quickly coming to a settlement (even if better from a bargaining standpoint) is a bad look. This probably makes me especially angry as a father who flies American Airlines with his daughter.
The right thing to do is take responsibility for the safety of passengers, because this airline – like all others – emphasizes that safety is their number one priority. And that didn’t happen here.
This is a problem about the other flight attendants, too. By sequestering themselves to talk and play Candy Crush, they aren’t circulating around to see if their colleagues are doing their job correctly. American Airlines is definitely culpable in my opinion. Let us see how this unfolds and if AA is willing to risk their company in open court. I hope the amount asked is significant. Maybe other parties can join in a class action.
I agree with AA on this one. Their employee broke the law; AA is NOT the employee. Heinous crimes are committed by employees of other large corporations and those employees (not their employer) is the one charged/held responsible.
I’m not a lawyer (nor did I sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night), but I’m going to bet there is some culpability on the part of AA. Although AA may not have been responsible for their employee’s offenses, but the fact is that the flight attendant used AA’s equipment to perform the crime. This is entirely different, from, say, an employee who goes on a rampage in their place of employment, but uses an outside weapon (ie knife, gun from home) to commit the crime.
Seems American has trouble living up to its mission statement – “Our purpose is to care for people on life’s journey. Embark on an adventure with a commitment to service, excellence and humanity. Our team is what powers our airline.” Seems to me one of their engines was severely defective.
@Mike – As a matter of law, it does depend on knowledge or negligence, as I understand it. There was a cable company that hired an installer with a known violent history in his background check. He was disgruntled and talked about it at work. He threatened customers on multiple occasions and they reported the incidents to the company, which did nothing.
Eventually the telco was found liable for damages when he murdered a woman as part of a theft. The company was negligent in its handling of his situation, continually exposing their customers to a man with a known pattern of violence towards those customers.
We’ll have to see in court whether that’s the case with AA (I could see this going either way, but so far, AA doesn’t seem to have had any knowledge of the tendencies of this employee). But my point is that we can, and should, hold companies liable to some degree based on the circumstances of the situation.
@Mike. I would agree if he was caught with child pornography unrelated to his job. But sorry, that is absurd to think AA has no culpability for an employee action when they endanger passengers on the job, especially when in a position of authority with no option for the passenger to walk away from it. So you are saying that a flight attendant can seal a door, kill a passenger for no reason, and AA is not responsible? If AA is not responsible for allowing this environment, knowingly or not, who is? There is a reasonable expectation that their employees are not disgustingly filming children in toilets.
Even more so, why AA would choose to battle this out in the public eye is a huge mistake. Offer a huge settlement to all the families and bury it. This could blow up even more and make AA appear truly horrific. The damages to their reputation being far more dangerous than a few million payout.
To the parents, I can’t imagine the long term effects this will have on these girls. It’s awful. Make AA pay heavily for this. And bring it to light so that others know that flight attendants are not shielded or special. All of this is an extension of their power trip attitudes. They think they can say or do anything as a result. It’s appalling and should be a wake up call of how unions and greed have created a toxic and dangerous atmosphere for US passengers.
@Stuart
I think we’re in agreement that this incident is especially heinous because the offender was creating child pornography. However, the employee chose his actions. I highly doubt the AA Employee Manual recommends their employees do anything that would violate the law.
“So you are saying that a flight attendant can seal a door, kill a passenger for no reason, and AA is not responsible? If AA is not responsible for allowing this environment, knowingly or not, who is?”
The employee/passenger/whoever chose to commit murder; in your example, the flight attendant.
As was mentioned earlier, there may be more to the story than we presently know; however based on what was presented, I don’t fault AA for the criminal actions of an employee who chose to break the law.
I’m with @Stuart. AA is insane to attempt to dodge all involvement when their FA did this on their flight and the crew did nothing until landing so the criminal got to scrub his phone. At an absolute minimum that’s negligence. American should just pay up rather than looking culpable. Otherwise they’ll lose more money through customers booking elsewhere.
+1 American innocent
This is disgusting and should not happen with any one. Airlines should take necessary steps to stop such kind of activities and make everyone safer and keep their things private while air journey.
If the actions of an American airline employee caused physical injury during a flight, the company is liable.
If the actions of an employee caused emotional injury, the company is also 100% liable.
This will be an easy case for a jury to come to a conclusion. AA is nuts for fighting this out in the open. Someone on the legal team needs to be fired.
Too bad the young lady in question did not just drop the phone into the toilet and flush.
AA placed this employee in a position where he could potentially commit these acts. Yes, they could argue in court that they conducted background checks, etc. That could go either way, especially as there may be additional information obtained via discovery. Personally, I think it’s absurd to come on here and comment that AA has no responsibility here. In theory, they do and any slip and fall attorney can make that argument.
Does AA really want to fight this out in court? At the minimum, it’s a really bad look for them and will have the added side effect of keeping this alive in the media. They’d be crazy not to just try and settle these suits out of court.
I’m curious in this situation, if the 9-year-old didn’t know, why tell her at all? Does law enforcement require an interview? Should they?
Agree that AA isn’t liable unless there’s some other negligence we don’t know about. Probably still smart to settle for a reasonable amount; maybe AA doesn’t view the proposed settlement amount as reasonable.
I’d expect AA to be paying out some money since I can’t imagine they want this to go to court. It is bad enough PR as it is.
I don’t understand all the people saying AA is innocent. Employers are generally liable for on-the-clock misdeeds of their employees, or misdeeds facilitated by access to employer data. And this pretending otherwise is just going to upset a jury.
How liable depends on whether they should have known better. A company that ignores red flags is in a far worse position than one caught by surprise.
IF AA IS liable:
Might as well also hold the phone manufacturer (Apple/Android), the camera manufacturer used by the phone, battery manufacturer used by the phone, silicon chip manufacturers used by the phone, wireless provider/ store who sold the phone to the criminal, cloud app companies that synced with phone, etc. liable too…
…Or we could realize this is still a free society and people who break laws are responsible for their own criminal acts.
So according to some of you, literally anything bad happens to you and your entitled to millions of dollars payout? You’re what’s wrong with this country today.
You can’t plan for everything that might happen. AA takes reasonable steps to make sure theit employees are competent and trustworthy, but at some point their liability ends. You can’t say well, sure they trained everyone and did background checks but these families should be set up for life because someone did something no one could have reasonably expected.
@Reiko, umm this was not spilling coffee on a passenger. This was filming young girls in the toilets of an AA aircraft by an employee. If you consider anything as remotely comparable you are a bit off yourself.