Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Common sense would have been to increase the offer until four volunteers were found.
Common sense would have been for UA staff to know that this was not an IDB.
Common sense would have been for the pilot to show some leadership and try to resolve the situation before the "cops" were called.
Common sense would have been for the manager (especially assuming that it really was a UA manager and not just a supervisor) to try to resolve the situation instead of presumably ordering or allowing the GA to call the "cops."
And, finally, common sense is for all of us to recognize that the people who attacked Dr. Dao were not LEO or "Law Enforcement" (in the words of post
#6344 by
spin88) but rather just airport security guards who had been ordered months ago not to have the word POLICE on their "uniforms." There is a difference.
I assume the reason UA doesn't allow agents to use "common sense" to increase voucher amounts is because someone ran a calculation. You say increase it from $800 to $1200 is just common sense. Well, I don't know the numbers, but there are probably thousands of VDB's throughout the year. Someone calculated it's cheaper to pay IDB compensation than raise to $1200. The cost of each one going up by $400 is probably huge. Is it as huge as the settlement? Who knows...but nobody expected that scenario to happen. Even so, say it's a million dollars...their analysts may still deem keeping it $800 was the right financial decision. There's no way to know which .000001% will escalate to what happened to the doctor. So you keep all at a $800 cap and in the long run save money.
I also don't agree that it's obviously not IDB. I've read the COC sections multiple times and I think there are folks on this board, myself included, who could see the argument that this was IDB. So just because it's clear to you, doesn't mean everyone universally agrees. Unfortunately, this will probably not make it to trial, so we won't have a legal answer.