A court in Portland, Ore. has ruled in favor of a woman who sued a major U.S. airline for its treatment of her and her twin infant daughters.
The lawsuit involved a conflict aboard an American Airlines (AAL) -) flight on Feb. 4.
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Erika Hamilton, mother of 18-month-old twin daughters, was flying on American Airlines from Portland to Tallahassee, Fla., including a Dallas layover.
Hamilton, a lawyer from Portland, said she was ticketed for one of her daughters to sit on the seat next to her and the other on her lap.
The policy of the airline, Hamilton said, was to allow for infants to sit without car seats as long as they can sit up straight in their seats. Hamilton said her daughters could sit up straight and she provided a photo showing them doing just that.
But a flight attendant on board the leg of the trip from Dallas to Tallahassee reportedly told Hamilton the infant in the seat was required to sit in a car seat.
The conflict between the two grew until a woman behind Hamilton — a complete stranger — offered to hold the daughter in the seat on her lap, providing an unexpected solution, Hamilton explained.
How American Airlines ended up in court
Once in Tallahassee, Hamilton inquired with American Airlines about a reimbursement for the unused seat during the flight.
She was denied that refund and then decided to sue the airline in a small claims court in Oregon.
"One of the benefits of small claims court is that it is an informal process that can put ordinary people on the same footing as billion dollar corporations — to allow them to seek redress for wrongs and to hold such corporations accountable," Hamilton told TheStreet through email in August.
At that time, Hamilton also suggested to TheStreet that the case would likely be heard some time in October.
So on Oct. 27, she sent a follow-up email to TheStreet, saying the case was resolved. She also commented on the outcome.
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The small claims court's decision
Hamilton had won the lawsuit against American on a breach of contract claim, she wrote in the email.
"The judge concluded that American needed to refund the cost of the ticket when they denied my daughter the right to occupy her ticketed seat," Hamilton wrote. "The two passengers seated behind me (including the woman who held my daughter) both appeared telephonically and testified that the flight attendant did not know the airlines' own rules and harassed me for the duration of the flight. I also testified as part of my case."
Hamilton said the American Airlines flight attendant also testified at the trial. Hamilton characterized her take on what the flight attendant said in court and how American approached the case.
Her testimony was riddled with contradictions (for example, she testified that she had spoken to the gate agent about the size of my car seats, and the gate agent told her they were too big to fit on the plane) — a fact that simply couldn't be true because my car seats had been checked through from Portland to Florida.
And a gate agent in Dallas simply wouldn't go down to the belly of the plane to inspect baggage. She then also testified that she told the passengers behind me that she would have delayed the plane if necessary to retrieve my daughters' car seat for her to sit in on that flight (even though she had already been told, apparently, that that car seat was too large to fit on the plane).
I think all of this really goes to show the lengths American Airlines is willing to go to try to bully and mistreat its customers.
Anyone with a any ounce of common sense could review this flight attendant's report and "recollections" of the experience and know her statements simply couldn't be true. But instead of doing that and making things right with me, American Airlines fought this to the end.
Hamilton said the money involved was not a large amount, but she had maintained all along that this fight, for her, was about principles.
"As expected, damages were paltry (they were ultimately ordered to refund 4,500 miles and pay court costs of around $100), but it was the clear victory I was hoping for," Hamilton wrote.
At the time of this reporting, American Airlines had not responded to a request for comment about the outcome of the case.
