An 82-year-old American Airlines passenger from Florida traveled from West Palm Beach to Charlotte on May 16, 2024. He was in seat 18D, and the woman next to him was singing loudly and bellowing to herself from the time she boarded. He asked to be moved, or to have her omved, but the flight was full.
During the flight, she attacked the man “without warning,” struck him with punches, and “severely beat” him, allegedly causing head and brain injuries. While she was beating the man, his lawsuit says, a flight attendant stood within arm’s reach, watched the assault, and did not try to help.
When the plane landed in Charlotte, the woman was removed by police and arrested. She was charged, missed a November court date, and is now a fugitive. (Between the American Airlines incident and missing her court date she was also arrested at Burning Man for allegedly assaulting another attendee with a nitrous oxide canister and kicking and punching responding officers.)
The octogenarian passenger says he is now afraid to fly and suffered “mental anguish and emotional distress, feelings of violation, and ongoing anxiety regarding air travel.” He claims pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, aggravation of a preexisting condition, loss of enjoyment of life, hospitalization, medical and nursing care, lost wages, lost future earning ability (at his age?), and other economic damages.
This sounds like the worst seatmate situation ever. But I’m also not sure holding American Airlines responsible – rather than the person who actually attacked – makes much sense, other than American likely has much deeper pockets.
- He needs to prove foreseeabilty. His own lawsuit says the assault happened “without warning.” Singing loudly may be weird or uncomfortable, but it is not obviously predictive of a violent beating.
- The woman is the one who did it, not American. She’s the attacker, not the airline. If American should have known this was coming, had a responsibility to stop it, could reasonably have done so and simply failed to act there could be some attributable fault. But it’s a stretch at each step.
- American couldn’t move her since there were no open seats on the flight. Even if they’d diverted the aircraft, the assault came out of nowhere. That would have been a reaction after the fact. Once it became clear how the woman was going to behave, it was likely too late to stop the attack.
- Hindsight is 20/20. Airlines have a lot of operational direction over the placement and transportation of passengers, but the range of behavior of passengers varies greatly, and not everyone behaving at the tails of the distribution is going to do this. We wuldn’t want every odd or even unwell passenger mandatorily booted off the aircraft, just to protect the airline from getting sued. It would have been better if her future behavior was known at the outset, but it’s important not to take that and retroactively read an obligation on an airline to predict it.
- What should the flight attendant have done? The strongest argument is that a flight attendant was “within arm’s reach” but it’s not clear how well that crewmember could have stopped this (without injury to themselves). That will be a factual dispute as this case advances. If they didn’t immediately intercede but contacted other crewmembers for assistance that may have been reasonable under the circumstances – and clearly other crew became involved because law enforcement was waiting for the aircraft on arrival in Charlotte.
Last summer I wrote about a passenger suing Southwest over another customer’s drunk attack, saying that their open seating at the time made the attack inevitable.
A year ago I covered a passenger pushing a flight attendant onto a sleeping woman. American reasonably argued that an the ruly passenger was entirely at fault, but the judge allowed the case to proceed because a jury could consider whether American mishandled the disruptive passenger and delayed removal. That’s basically the framing in this case, too.
On Wednesday, the judge dismissed the suit without prejudice because the passenger failed to clarify his citizenship for diversity jurisdiction. He’ll be able to re-file to address the procedural deficiency by May 19.
As much as I’d love to rip on AA flight attendants….to expect a flight attendant to get involved in a brawl with some drugged up person beating on someone? No. I wouldn’t expect that at all.
Who knew Karen could sing and punch?
Likely there were two or more flight attendants on the plane. ‘
They could have distracted the person who was beating up the 82 year old person.
Oh, and my mother still makes money consulting every year, she is 98. Don’t assume that just because someone is over 55 that they can’t earn a living. That is agism one of the worst faults of our society.
She’d been next to me I would knocked her into another world if she started any crap with me.
If the flight attendants are here for our health and safety, then it’s their job to deal with this. Otherwise, they should stop pretending and focus on providing good in-flight service as sky waitresses.
Stories like this make their claims about health and safety laughable.
You can’t have it both ways.
Airlines regularly fail to do their due diligence to protect others from an obviously mentally impaired individual. They do it with intoxicated people. Why not with a mentally ill woman? I am a psychiatrist and have had the unpleasant experience (also on AA) of sitting next to a psychotic woman, who was hostile and belligerent, and should have not been allowed on the plane. She was behaving like the street dwellers who live in homeless encampments and yell at you as you walk by. No need to be a mental health professional. Just use common sense.
I have repeatedly stated in these blogs that putting mentally ill people in a tube flying at 35K feet is an invitation to serious problems.
–American might be liable for not making the assailant fly Spirit, where passenger assaults were as common as extra fees!
–Charlotte NC? The victim is lucky the assailant didn’t stab him in the neck!
–Bat-shit crazy chick who was arrested months earlier at Burning Man? Democrackpot for sure!
–I’m with @Doug Houseman, whose mom is still working at 98. My father went to the office daily until he was nearly 90. God bless them!
After the first punch it was foreseeable she would hit him again, so doing nothing is not the right response. So what are the obligations of the airline to prevent people from beating another passenger? You can’t call the cops.
Perhaps other male passengers (or make F/A if there was one) could have come to the aid by helping to subdue and handcuff the attacker. Unless the 82 yr old is really exaggerating this event, I can’t imagine other burley passengers ignoring it or the flight not diverting.
The FAs are not law enforcement. They have no obligation to intervene, nor are they trained to do so. Not to mention the possible liability issues.
She entered the plane singling loudly and bellowing to herself. That alone gave American gate staff,,pilots and flight attendants warning that they were dealing with a mentally unstable and possibly dangerous person.
I hope he wins millions and American has to pay his Healthcare costs for the rest of his life!
I’m with you Diane. Sorry to say it Gary, but you sound like one of those soft on crime idiots. Whatever clout you carry is certainly wasted on that point of view. Why not put the 82 year old on a flight full of illegals heading back to their shi*hole countries and tell him he’s on his own? Better yet why don’t you volunteer to take his place. Of course it’s the airlines responsibity but don’t fret, some dumb*ss liberal judge will set the culprit free anyway. What a messed up world.
The FA *absolutely* should have gotten involved. How far do you let it go? Someone starts hitting an 80+ year old in the HEAD and it’s OK for the FA to not get involved? What about punching a pregnant woman in the stomach? Is that OK to not get involved and just deal with it when you land? What about biting people and drawing blood? What about knifing people?