enviroian

Do we know if the moron that pushed him has been fired? I hope so.

ajGoes

He's described as a "former United employee" in United's press release. That doesn't necessarily mean he was fired, but it's suggestive.

spin88

Given how bad this looks, I think United would have put "fired" if they had actually fired him. That they have to just call him a "former" employee itself says a lot, and not good for United.

blueman2

Think about this: United has this video, which clearly shows the complete lack of empathy displayed by numerous United employees, a full year before the Dao incident. And UA leadership did nothing. It should have been 100% clear that a Dao incident was going to happen after watching this. To anyone but United leadership, that is. And that includes Munoz.

The fact that this happened before Oscar came on board does not absolve him. It condemns him because it is now clear he KNEW this was a problem and took no action to prevent future problems like this.

My days of doing any type of defense for UA or speaking positively about them to others is over.

jsloan

I disagree; you're reading an awful lot into a choice of words regarding employment status. Refusing to discuss the reasons for an employee's departure, and using deliberately neutral phrasing, is par for the course in the US. This helps to avoid future lawsuits from an employee claiming that they're being blacklisted (false negative references, etc.). Furthermore, UA's union contracts may prohibit the disclosure of an employee's termination.

I've worked at (non-union) companies in the past where the only information about an employee that was permitted to be disclosed was the start and end date of employment; IIRC, we were not even allowed to disclose the value of the "would re-hire" field in the database. Just, "Yes, John Smith worked here from April 5, 2008 until May 17, 2010."

coplatsat

There is 2 year statute of limitations in Texas for negligence actions, so that is the ultimate deadline (excluding tolling arguments which would not apply in this case).

It takes time to work up a personal injury case before you file suit, and of course you attempt to come to a resolution prior to filing suit. Working up consists of determining the extent of the injuries and what the prognosis is. Ie what is the injury, what does the treatment consist of, and will it require long term care-and how much will this all costs?

Also, if he did in fact lose consciousness, and he was diagnosed with a closed head injury, determining a prognosis takes time and requires treatment by various specialties. Plus, scheduling dr's appointments and obtaining medical records takes time. All the records then have to be reviewed by the lawyers on all sides, the insurance company(ies), the consulting experts on both sides, etc....


If you settle a case before you know this and then a latent injury is discovered, said lawyer could be sued ironically for negligence. Plus, you don't want to short change your client.

Although a harsh term. yes it is a money grab but money is the only thing we have to compensate the victim for injuries sustained. Free flights or whatever other non-monetary compensation that United could offer won't pay for the medical bills etc... If you mean money grab as this is groundless/I respectfully disagree with you.

Now if there is a case (rarely) where the is no question as to liability, the defendant has liquidity/insurance, and the injury is obvious and/or not going to get any worse (IE death), then a fairly quick settlement is possible. And by quick,I mean 3-6 months. Even in this hypothetical you may have to contract an economist to calculate loss of future income, which takes time.


Finally, his lawyer probably has more than one client with more immediate deadlines which delays his work on this case.

In summary, don't assume it is a money grab because they waited what you consider to be a long time, there are many factors to be considered which are mostly only known to the lawyers and doctors who deal with this on a daily basis.

As to this case, liability is clear on behalf of the pusher, United may be able to argue that this act was not in the scope of the employee's conduct, but in the end, United appears liable. The damages is what would be the difficult and the defense will focus on anything in the victims medical records from non related past injuries or aging that they can point their finger at as the cause of the victims injuries. IE said victim is not suffering from memory problems because of the hitting of his head on the concourse floor, but age and an old football injury.....so UA doesn't have to compensate (as much) for this particular injury.

As to those of you who imply he may be faking, if he is, he will be found out. As mentioned above, his medical records will be provided to the defense and insurance company. If there is anything suspicious or ambiguous, before any settlement discussions will occur, the victim's medical records at minimum will be scrutinized by the defense/insurance company, and/or the victim will be sent to be evaluated by doctors that are hired by the defense/insurance company. Don't forget, faking an injury and collecting a settlement would be considered insurance fraud. There are both civil and criminal implications with this charge.

spin88

A good summary, I would only add that a lawyer would typically send a pre-filing demand letter to United. The leverage of exposure and a PR campaign is often most effective before the damage to the defendant is done.

84fiero

My thoughts as well - get out in front of other incidents that they surely knew would surface after that. As someone else mentioned upthread, this just makes it surprising that there haven't been more incidents.

It's really sad to watch. What cold and callous people working there - not even calling 911 or going over to attend to the man. I totally agree - they all should have been fired. You can't retrain compassion and common sense.

Duke787

Just finally had a chance to watch the full video. This video is disgusting, indefensible, and really makes you wonder how in the world a corporate culture could be so rotten that these employees literally just stare at an unconscious man for 90 seconds as if nothing happened.

Without a doubt every single one of those employees should have been fired on the spot - let the consequences from the union be {redacted}

MrAndy1369

Terrible. Just terrible.

The Dao incident was screwed up, but at least it was the police who committed the act, which was sorta-kinda out of UA's control. This, UA had full control.

I can't believe employees stood around doing nothing. Hitting the "ball" on the back of your head is truly dangerous and can lead to paralysis and quick death, IIRC – what if he hit it when he was pushed/hit to the ground?

This makes me really, really, really angry.

tuolumne

The employee that pushed him is disguising.

minnyfly

Couldn't have said it much better. It's a broken record.

I'd gladly mouth off (and whatever else it took for this guy) and get pushed to the ground for a million dollars. No excuse for the employee's actions, but there's been times in the retail sector when I wanted to clock a customer that was verbally abusing me. The bottom line is that you have tens of thousands of employees, unfortunately not everyone is a saint and will properly restrain themselves. There's bad apples in every company. As a customer, I'm concerned with the bad apples at the top, not the ones at the bottom that strike when provoked. You can avoid the second. You can't always avoid the first.

Makes you wonder what exactly happened before the video clip (it doesn't look we have the whole story), and during the final exchange. I mean, NOBODY in the area came to his aid. No UA person. Not fellow passengers standing just feet away. The first person to check on him came from outside the video view many seconds later. That's telling about what people possibly thought of the passenger as well.

coplatsat

For those of you interested, a settlement range will be calculated by both sides. The range will be determined by what the actual paid and/or incurred costs (medical bills, lab tests, new shirt if it was torn etc..) added to costs which may be incurred for future treatment multiplied by a factor. The factor is determined by the defendant's degree of negligence. IE-a car wreck caused by a drunk driver has a higher factor.

This case, the factor in my opinion would be pretty high-may be 4 to 5 times costs!

But it is also important to realize that "paid and incurred" will limit the costs. IE..when you go to the hospital you get a bill. Initially the bill is very high but the hospital reduces it based upon contracts with insurance companies etc... So the cost is the actual money that was paid, not what was billed, or the amount that they expect to get paid (incurred) not the face of the bill. By way of example, I have seen hospital bills reduced by 88% which would in turn reduce the settlement range by 88%.

Also, the victim is still responsible for paying the bills (or paying the layer back for the bills the lawyer paid on his behalf) and in all likelihood, the treating doctors and hospitals will file medical liens to insure they are paid out of the settlement. Medicaid/Medicare is automatic. Another consideration, is that if the victim's health insurance company has paid for treatment related to the injury, then they also have a right to be reimbursed. Typically, it ends up were the victim gets about a 1/3, the lawyers a 1/3 and the medical providers 1/3. There are no windfalls (anymore).

Also, UA's insurance carrier (if they have it and are not self insured), may refuse to cover the claim because it was "intentional" and not negligent. This further complicates resolving this issue, adds delays, and usually leads to UA filing suit against their own carrier for denying the claim.

saFlyTalk

What concerns me the most is that the lack of action on the part of United employees doesn't surprise one iota. I don't think that is an anomaly; it is a deeper cultural problem with the company.

SFO777

This settlement will be far, far higher especially with a good attorney and will have nothing to do with expenses.
UA is going to wind up paying well into 7 figures or more to make this disappear before any trial.