Hypothetical: Airline passenger becomes unruly after takeoff. Captain elects to return to the departure city. Police offload the troublemaker. Plane proceeds to destination, now a couple of hours behind schedule.
Suppose you’re on this plane, and the delay causes you to miss something important. Is there any chance you could successfully sue the troublemaker?
You certainly could try to sue but I sure hope that kind of suit is unsuccessful. I’m so sick of people not being able to accept that “shit happens”. They’re always looking for a fault/scapegoat when things don’t go their way. It almost makes me wish I went to law school so I could tell people who want these kinds of lawsuits to get lost.
It would be unsuccessful if there were no damages. Success would imply that some actual, real harm was a consequence. Why would you not want to see real harm redressed?
I can acknowledge the point that this might open the floodgate to a lot of nuisance lawsuits, but that’s not what I’m asking about. I’m asking why you wouldn’t want to make whole someone who suffered a real loss.
Why would that be the first recourse? There are many other things which can and therefore should be done first (claim from your travel insurance, claim from the airline), and at least in the Spanish legal system the response of any lawyer would be “let’s do all these other things first”. Proving that the harm caused was too large to be covered by the other steps and that it was due exclusively to the unruly passenger seems like something which would be tough.
The captain elected to return to the departure city. Sue him.
The OP clearly described a situation where shit didn’t just “happen”. Shit happened because a clearly identified individual behaved in a clearly inappropriate manner which clearly* violated both airline rules and the law. That being the case, the notion that said clearly identified individual owes compensation to those harmed by their behavior is hardly unreasonable.
*If there are any airlines that do not have a clause in the conveyance contract requiring passengers to settle down and shut up when so instructed by crew members, or any jurisdictions which do not criminalize interference with aircraft operations, by all means provide relevant cites.
The problem I would see with succeeding in the lawsuit is that the delay was only a couple of hours. The defense could argue that a delay of that short time might have occurred for various reasons (delays in departure due to weather, mechanical problems with the plane, etc) and that you should have allowed for some delay in your planning, particularly as you said that you had somewhere important to be.
I think airlines have themselves covered for things like weather, mechanical problems, etc.
But I’d think you’d be able to go after an individual whose actions were under their control and they willingly broke the law.
And if you could prove an actual loss. Say you had $1000 tickets to Hamilton and the 5 hour delay caused you to miss the show completely.
I’d think you’d have a case there.
I think technically you’d have a case, but, the cost of pursuing it would be prohibitive. Remember, in the US, with some exceptions, you have to pay your own costs and legal fees, even if you win. Also, most defendants don’t have much money (this guy might) and this conduct isn’t covered by insurance. You’d have to find the right jurisdiction to sue in (where it happened or where defendant lives are the logical choices) which could be very inconvenient for you. Given that it’s an unusual type of case, I think you really would have to get a lawyer and not try to do this pro se. (there** will **be a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim) If you try to turn it into a bigger case (file on behalf of all passangers) you’re making it even more unlikely the guy could pay you.
Perhaps you’ve got plenty of resources and simply want to do this to make an example of the guy? Go for it.
This cuts to the heart of the matter. The unruly passenger didn’t alter the plane schedule, the captain did, and by extension, it was the Airline who changed the plane schedule. You can’t sue an Airline for a delayed plane.
Now, if the passenger broke into the cockpit and flew the plane to Havana, maybe you could sue him for your lost Hamilton tickets.
Might I suggest, then, that you give the Handel On The Law podcast a try. He’s a lawyer whose tagline is, “Where I tell you have absolutely no case.” The snark is strong with this guy.
What **SteveMB **said: What is being described in the OP is not just a matter of “shit happens.” A legit case of “shit happening” would be if some passenger gets appendicitis or meningitis or something that forces the flight to divert out of nobody’s fault. Whereas the OP is talking about a passenger being unruly. That’s different; that is behavior within the unruly passenger’s control.
Unruly behaviour, specifically “interfering with a flight crew” is a criminal offense AFAIK. That includes failing to obey their instructions when required. So if someone commits a crime and it causes you a loss, I don’t see why you couldn’t sue. I would imagine if your claim was “I had ringside seats for the Raptors final game, and you made me miss the game - $37,000 please” it would be worthwhile to sue.
The only argument I could see counter to that was “you cut the time pretty close then…” but the unruly passenger did cause your loss. Plus, the pilot is perfectly right to return to the gate when activity onboard rises to the level of a crime. Another defense might be “it wasn’t that bad that the pilot had to return”.
However, I was on a flight once from Toronto to La Guardia where just before the safety briefing, as the plane pulled out, the flight attendant let an older lady move up to an empty business class seat. (Smaller plane, so it was a single seat on one side of the aisle just a head of 2by2 seating). Another passenger disputed this - I assume he wanted the seat. He wasn’t loud or rude, but he was persistent in complaining about the choice. After he interrupted the security briefing for the third time the flight attendant went to the cockpit and had them pull back into the gate and get the guy off. I don’t think anyone had sympathy for that guy’s point of view.
Sorry it’s been a month and a half but I missed the followups to my comment. I don’t believe there is any right to expect that a scheduled flight will arrive at a specific time. i don’t care if it’s weather, the pilot had a hiccough spell, or an asshole causes a commotion on the plane and forces an unscheduled landing.
What next? Suing the guy whose car ran out of gas (he thought he had enough to get to a gas station) and his car is now blocking the road and due to the traffic jam you’ll miss an important meeting at work and not earn a bonus as a result? I don’t think so.
A passenger doesn’t always have that option; for instance, the amount of time you have to make a connecting flight is not under a passenger’s control. And if the connecting flight you miss is a long-haul overseas flight, this could mean a serious delay of a day or more.
Actually, the US is fairly unique in providing virtually no legal protection for passengers affected by flight delays. In the EU and many other places, passengers are entitled by law to as much as 600 euros per passenger for flight delays that were under the airline’s control, including mechanical/operational reasons.
So if a drunk driver rams into my vehicle I shouldn’t seek damages because my car could have been hit by a falling tree?
Yes, it’s under your control. You could have chosen a different connecting flight. Say, perhaps, that you’re flying overseas to board a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea on Saturday afternoon. You could book a flight pair that gets you to the port city a couple of hours before the ship leaves port. Or you could plan to arrive on Friday afternoon, so you have a day to rest and to allow for travel delays.
Sure, in the case of making it well in advance to some important event like the departure of a cruise ship, where that event is unrelated to the flight, you could elect to take a flight that arrives extra early or the previous day. But for connecting flights, I believe the airline generally controls the flight routings and there are standard rules for connecting time allowances. If for instance you had a connecting flight to Europe from JFK and you wanted to get to JFK extra early by taking an earlier flight on your own initiative, I’m pretty sure you’d end up paying for two separate flights on two separate tickets.
I’ve had flights that arrived late to JFK where we were told to stay seated so those who needed to make connecting flight to elsewhere could deplane first. And sometimes the second flight is delayed because they know that some passengers are yet to arrive. So the airline is aware of these things. (On the other hand, once I ran from one gate to another at Detroit to catch a connection and got there just as they closed the door. They refused to open it for me so I had to sit and wait for four hours for the next flight. And four hours at the Detroit airport is like a lifetime anywhere else. It is (or was) a really dreary airport.)
The real question is whether or not it’s actually worth sueing, once you consider that your damages will probably be somewhat limited (how much of a loss would most people do in the case of a 2 hour delay), it’ll be in civil court, so the fact that you could have flown earlier to accommodate unforeseen events will almost certainly be held against you, you’ll be on the hook for lawyers fees (unless you find a lawyer willing to work on contingency) and finally, whether or not the guy you’re sueing actually has any money that can be taken to make your loss good (doubly important if your lawyer is working on contingency).
Put another way, if you’re out $4000 for your Hamilton tickets, it’s a tall order to sue that guy for enough money to make your $4000 loss good and pay your lawyer one way or another, when that’ll almost certainly be adjusted downward because of your own degree of culpability (should have flown earlier), and that’s assuming this guy has $4000-ish around to pay with.