A Brazilian woman who went viral in December after refusing to give up her window seat for a crying child has now filed a lawsuit against the airline and the passenger who filmed her.
Jeniffer Castro, a 29-year-old bank employee from Belo Horizonte, had an assigned window seat on her Gol flight. A child was sitting there, but she insisted on keeping her assigned seat.
The child’s mother wouldn’t accept this – she wanted her crying son to sit by the window.
- She hadn’t wanted this badly enough to secure a window seat assignment for him
- And, indeed, the mother’s family already had a window seat – they didn’t want to give that up for her son, they wanted him to get another passenger’s window
Castro refused, and the mother went into a tirade, accusing the woman of lacking empathy for children. On video, the mother can be heard asking “Why doesn’t she want to change seats? I even asked if she has some kind of syndrome or something. If someone has a problem, some disability, we understand.”
@ondavirall2.0 Uma criança fez um escândalo em um avião porque queria sentar na janela, essa passageira se recusou a ceder o assento para a criança. A mãe da criança, não gostou e começou a filmar a passageira, como se ela fosse a culpada da situação.
People generally sided with the woman refusing to give up her seat. In fact, the woman became an online hero picking up millions of followers on Instagram and becoming an online influencer. She’s done multiple brand deals in the past couple of months.
Yet she’s suing, claiming that she was embarrassed and that this has been bad for her personal and professional life (maybe being an online influencer is what’s bad for her professionally as a banker, and personally).
She claims that she was (1) filmed without her consent, (2) this led to unwarranted public scrutiny, and (3) harming her reputation and emotional well-being.
I decided to sue the airline because what happened to me was a huge embarrassment, and this situation should never have reached this point. No one deserves to go through what I went through, being filmed, insulted, and attacked just for exercising a basic right.
Brazil’s legal system is different than that of the U.S., of course. But she promoted herself online and made money and most of the attention was positive so surely that counts for something in calculating damages. And she posts bikini pics of herself on Instagram, surely that influences her career in banking – for better or worse – more than becoming an online hero to the masses?
No bikini shot link?
@Brodie, yes, pics or it didn’t happen.
I’m with her on this. Glad she stood firm on her seat. Happy for her to get followers. If she wants to sue, let the court decide–maybe their laws (in Brazil) permit and encourage this; maybe they don’t (who knows). This was not a lack of empathy. This was not ‘greed.’ This was an example of bad parenting (by the parent or guardian) of the child–move your kid into their own assigned seat.
The mother stole her seat, hot chick is in the right. Mommy can suck it. Entitled bitch hiding behind her baby, weak….
@Brodie you can go to her instagram if you wish
I often give up a seat on a short flight to accommodate other families. But I agree with the plaintiff, the viral shaming for not doing so is unwarranted. I’m autistic and I feel quite overwhelmed if I’m not in an aisle seat.
All for her! The kid excuse is tired. Stay home.
@Brodie — Gary’s right. Red one. Enjoy!
I hope she wins. She is no longer working in banking. No numbers were given about how much she was making before and how much she is making now so the cashing in is unsubstantiated. She probably wishes she could go back to a quiet life in banking which would lead to being able to retire down the line.
As for the specific seat, she paid for it, either bundled in the ticket or as a separate charge. The mother should have dealt with the child and should have not given the child the seat in the first place without the permission of the ticket holder.
She paid for that seat. I get really tired of people that think having children makes them some kind of hero or victim. If your child wants a window seat, buy a window seat.
@jns — I’m with you, 100%. Besides, hardly anyone is going to be working in banking anymore, soon enough–offshoring, if not automating all remaining decent ‘white collar’ desk jobs is currently and will likely continue to be the next era of ‘flattening’ the middle class, globally, yes, even in Brazil–they’ll send it India, then give it to artificial intelligence, all while ending social safety net programs, so we can all just starve. So, this lawsuit may be her ‘shot’ out of poverty–and, it is indeed hard to put a price on privacy and anonymity–once you lose it, that’s hard to regain it.
@George N Romey — Even we agree today on this. Glad to see that so far no one is defending the guardian of the child, because that’s the person who done f’d up here.