Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Do you have any specific cites - although a cop on duty might meet a different set of legal tests than a FA who is trying to enforce an instruction that had no legal basis.
Jbsay posted them earlier in the thread, but it's worth reading the judgements for the subtleties of what complaints were and weren't dismissed. Also there was a US Airways case where 8 Muslims were offloaded because of a jumpy passenger and FA, that case was dismissed despite the totally wrong-headed behaviour of the airline.
Originally Posted by
jbsay
Sure, but there are limits to this law. While the Federal Aviation Act (49 U.S.C. § 44902) provides that an airline “may refuse to transport a passenger or property the carrier decides is or might be inimical to safety," as the Ninth Circuit has explained, this section does not "render immune from liability a carrier whose decision to deny passage is unreasonably or irrationally formed." Cordero v. Cia Mexicana De Aviacion, S. A., 681 F.2d 669, 671 (9th Cir. 1982). An air carrier must "act reasonably in formulating opinions to deny passage" in order to enjoy immunity under § 44902.
UA's refusal to transport Matthew because he took photos of the BF cabin is arbitrary and capricious, as passenger photography has no nexus to the safety of the flight or the operations of the crew members. Similarly, Matthew's explanation of his behavior to the FA cannot form the grounds of UA's refusal to transport him. As one federal judge put it, "[w]here no safety issue is reasonably implicated, even grouches have a right to gripe without being grounded." Schaeffer v. Cavallero, 54 F. Supp. 2d 350, 352 (S.D.N.Y. 1999). "If [a] passenger is excluded because the opinion of the pilot is arbitrary or capricious and not justified by any reason or rational appraisal of the facts, then the denial of passage is discriminatory." Cordero, 681 F.2d at 671.