What's the Law?
In addition to federal regulations, the relationship between an airline and its passengers is governed by a contract (even though most passengers -- and in this instance even United personnel and executives as well -- may be unaware of its terms). There are two Rules (Rules 21 and 25) potentially applicable to the events of April 9th.
One rule deals with pre-boarding bumping; the other deals with the circumstances under which a seated passenger may be removed from the plane. The former is inapplicable because it is limited, by its terms, to the airline's rights prior to a passenger's boarding. The latter is inapplicable because it deals with itemized justifications for removing a seated passenger from a seat, such as severe illness, drunkenness, or other disruptive behavior -- a rule inapplicable by virtue of its spirit as well as its letter. See, John Banzhaf, "United Airlines Cites Wrong Rule For Illegally De-Boarding Passenger," LawNewz, April 11, 2017, yurl.com/l357mkh.
Prohibited Speech
The letter of the First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, only applies to efforts to restrict speech by governmental units. For most of us, most of the time, any restraints on our speech come from social mores and norms (e.g., "that's not nice," or in days gone by, "I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap") -- or civil suits for such things as defamation or intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A subset of these informal standards involves instances in which what was said is deemed to be grounds for dismissal from a job. See, Nicholas Johnson, "Was It Something I Said? General Semantics and the Unacceptable Remark," Institute for General Semantics, New York City, October 30, 2010, yurl.com/kzadru9; Nicholas Johnson, "Quck Draw Harreld and Why Language Matters," December 17, 2015, yurl.com/jasofod.
That could have been an issue in the United case, when United CEO Oscar Munoz's first response was a memo to United employees that included the following: "Our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this. While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right." "Text of letter from United CEO defending employees," Washington Post/Associated Press, April 10, 2017, yurl.com/mmfyreq. Not much better was his follow-up, including: "I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers." Re-accommodate? Michael Hiltzik, "United Finds a New Way to Make Itself Look Awful, and Then its CEO Shows How to Make Things Worse," Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2017, yurl.com/n7lqww2.
As it happened, this was about the same time that President Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, was explaining the missile attack on Syria as warranted because Assad had gassed his own people, which made him worse than Hitler. Nicholas Fandos and Mark Landler, "Sean Spicer Raises Outcry With Talk of Hitler, Assad and Poison Gas," New York Times, April 12, 2017, p. A13, yurl.com/l3dk4c6.
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