Sewer v. LIAT (1974) Ltd. (D. Virgin Islands Feb. 16, 2011). The plaintiff had purchased a ticket for a LIAT flight from the British Virgin Islands to Antigua. The flight was overbooked, so airline personnel informed the plaintiff that he would have to take a later flight. Undeterred, the plaintiff (and the other waiting would-be passengers) pushed past the airline’s gate personnel and boarded the aircraft. Airline personnel asked the plaintiff to leave the aircraft because he did not have a seat, and he did so. An off-duty police officer arrested and handcuffed the plaintiff, who was briefly detained in an airport holding cell and released without being charged with any crime.
The plaintiff filed suit against the airline, asserting claims of race discrimination, defamation and intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress, although the plaintiff only pursued the discrimination claim. The court described the plaintiff as “a black West Indian with dreadlocks in his hair who believes in the underlying tenets of Rastafarianism.”
LIAT moved for summary judgment, and the court granted the motion. The court agreed with the airline that the plaintiff’s discrimination claim was preempted by the Warsaw Convention, citing King v. American Airlines (written by now-Justice Sotomayor) and several other cases. The court also held that the plaintiff had no claim under the Warsaw Convention because bumping is a well-established airline industry practice and, thus, is not an “unexpected or unusual event” constituting an “accident” under Article 17. Finally, the court held that, even if the bumping had constituted an “accident,” the plaintiff’s claim still failed because his injuries, bruised and swollen wrists, were caused by the off-duty police officer in the airport, not by airline personnel on the aircraft.
Note: Plaintiff filed the case in 2002, and LIAT filed its summary judgment motion in 2009. Cases seem to move at a leisurely pace in the Virgin Islands, in both federal and state courts.