There are two different events and the majority of people are ignoring the second event. The first event involves Dao's right to stay aboard and the piss poor way the crew handled the situation. Whether his rights were violated or not is something a court would decide. Regardless, United has agreed to take responsibility for this action and what resulted after. The second event occurred when the crew turned the issue over to the authorities. The authorities are not there to play judge. In this day in time, people take flight security very seriously. If they have a call to remove a passenger who is refusing deboarding, its not their job to determine whether or not the person should be removed. Dao can resist an order to be deboarded by the crew. Dao can not resist an order from the authorities.
Enough not to get it to trial. If it costs them 10 mil its still cheaper than the negative backlash they will get if it goes to trial.
I don't blame officers for escalating to force when they need to unless it's clearly excessive. They were told to remove him and they did that. Dao's resistance resulted in his injuries and there's not much the officers could've done differently. I agree that they don't know the letter of the law either. Dao likely didn't know the exact terms of the contract either, but he felt he was justified in standing up for his rights. He took a gamble and he was right. Right is right, even if he didn't know it at the time. The full blame lies on United. They violated their contract for the passengers. They told enforcement to remove Dao from the plane. They are fully liable.
I guess I'm waffling back and forth on what exactly is meant by "wrong". Morally wrong vs. legally wrong. Beyond that, was this a case of resisting arrest? If so, was it an unlawful arrest? If so, how is that even determined? I know there are state level laws on such things, but is the airport a federal thing? Does the concept of lawful/unlawful go totally out the window on a plane? This crap is so messy. The only absolute I can really come up with here is that what United was attempting to do should not be legal in the first place.
But his behavior, even after suffering a concussion, clearly shows that he has mental issues. Ridiculous.
Yeah... a "concussion" is the easiest/most subjective diagnosis there is in a PI suit, and that is coming from someone that is a PI attorney in Chicago. As far as losing his teeth, lets wait and see when exactly and how exactly it happened.
This is why it's important to wait for all of the facts to come out. People here blindly defending a drug pushing, men's genitalia stealing, felon. Now there's a video where you can hear him consenting to someone using force to remove him. He wanted force, he got what he wanted.
There is no real debate that United and the agency that removed the flier bare a certain level of responsibility for what happened. They had numerous opportunities to handle the situation differently. They could have offered more than the $800 before going to a random draw. They could have addressed the issue prior to boarding. They could have called the Chicago PD. They had various possibilities. The question is how much responsibility falls on the passenger that refused to exit the plane and then attempted to re-board the plane. I think he has contributory fault in the entire ordeal. Balanced and reasonable people would not have acted like the passenger did. Ultimately it doesn't matter, because Demetrio has all the leverage, United wants this all to go away and will pay whatever it takes to keep the passenger from hitting the interview circuit and keeping the case in the news cycle. I am sure the settlement will be sealed and there will be an agreement to not discuss it; but under the circumstances in Cook County the settlement will likely be in the 6-10 million dollar range.
It could be. It also could have been when he tried to re-board or even when he was out of the plane. It is also very possible he was already missing teeth. I have had numerous clients claim teeth loss as a result of an accident, and it is hard to prove otherwise if there are teeth missing. You have to go petition the court for an IME or hope you get lucky issuing a subpoena to the plaintiff's prior dentist (if they tell you who that person is).
This is why it's important to wait for all of the facts to come out. People here blindly defending a corporation that has shown time and time again that they mistreat customers and skirt federal laws. Now there's stories where patrons are being threatened with handcuffs and stung by scorpions. They wanted to circumvent the law to save a buck, and they got what they wanted. This is fun.
I think most everyone realizes that United could have kept upping the auction to avoid this. They did try to address this prior to boarding, but they didn't up the bid until everyone was on board, and that was dumb. The Chicago PD is probably not who they are supposed to call, btw. The people they did call are an actual state entity and qualified to do what they did. The only real way around this, other than just simply not f***ing up the schedules of the crew, was to a) not let anyone on board til this was sorted and b) keep upping the bid. I'm not sure how that is legally going to play out. If someone falsely accuses you of a crime, and a cop tries to arrest you, even though the court finds you did nothing wrong, and in the process of resisting arrest you are injured... who eats how much of the blame pie? Are you absolved of all or some blame for your injury since you were falsely accused? I guess it boils down to whether a court/judge would find Dr. Dao's reaction to his situation reasonable. As in, since United created the scenario of Dr. Dao being kicked off the plane, is it reasonable for United to expect Dr. Dao to resist removal and/or be exposed to injury? I'm thinking United's malfeasance here may have bought Dr. Dao a pass for his otherwise unacceptable behavior. It would be fascinating to see that hashed out in court, but like everyone seems to agree, this will never see a courtroom unless United has a deathwish. Agreed.
LOL @ "consenting" to someone removing him. What he did was warn them of the consequences. He wanted to be removed from that plane like I want the Rockets to remove James Harden from their roster.
In the same way we shouldn't be so quick to buy United's recounting of the events ("overbooked", "belligerent"), don't be so quick to swallow the statements of a personal injury lawyer representing his client.
All legal intricate details aside, here is my take from a 15-year airline employee There is so much misinformation out there in the social media world that it makes my head hurt. This is the problem with social media these days. Everybody becomes a expert and lawyer. First of all, the plane was NOT over booked at any point in time. The plane was just full, and 4 crew members need to get on to replace the next flights crew so 4 passengers had to be removed. Its common practice for ALL airlines to do this if a last minute crew is needed some where. The crew for the next flight ran out of duty time for the day, and legally they can not fly until they meet their federal rest requirements. I don't think you guys realize how complex contractual and federal regulations of crew rest and duty requirements are. At my airline, our Crew FAR (The federal regulations bible) is almost 1000 pages thick!! So much changes day to day, or hour to hour in this industry. It takes a team of hundreds of employees 24/7-365 to manage flight crews. Instead of canceling the next flight, or delaying it 12+ hours airlines reposition crews as needed. It makes business sense to bump 4 passengers, and re-accommodate them as opposed to delaying or canceling a flight of 76 people. This has nothing to do with employee perks. ALL AIRLINES REPOSITION CREWS and if passengers have to be removed, so be it. Have you ever flown and next to you sat a pilot, or flight attendant? They aren't going on vacation, they are going to work! Second of all, this technically wasn't even on a United Airlines flight. NO UNITED EMPLOYEES OR MANAGEMENT were involved in any of this direct situation. The only thing United about this flight was the paint job. United contracts smaller airlines (in this case Republic) to run flights under the United Express branding. Thats it. Yes, United bares some responsibility because it is their branded product but in no way shape or form was any United employee working the flight. Republic airlines flys for United Express, Delta Connection and American Eagle flights. I am sure every one of you few on a non United-Delta-American flight and had no idea because the paint job on the plane said otherwise. Third. Most people who book flights obviously do not read the fine print. There was nothing illegal with regards to the bumping of passengers here. NOTHING. Unfortunate? Yes. Illegal? No. This has been the case for decades. Forth. It was Chicago O'Hare Security that actually did the physical abuse. NOT UNITED or REPUBLIC. It sucks to have to be bumped off a flight. I get it, but something had to give. You can't say "Ok sir sorry" then go to the next passenger because then every passenger has a reason to go somewhere. We all do, I get it. If that were how they did it, nobody would get off and what are they supposed to do with the next flight? Too many factors go into each flight that the average Joe just doesn't understand. Its a highly complex operation. Crews time out. Planes break. Weather causes problems. Flight get delayed...etc etc. Its unfortunate, but that was the luck of the draw. You were chosen to get off based on the ticket priority (Lowest overall value based on lowest ticket price, last to check in, non-frequent flier member...etc) and under the terms you agreed to when you purchased that ticket, they were within their right. Every airline, US or International has a "Contract of Carriage" that all share similar provisions. Boycotting United only to go to Delta isn't going to change anything. Delta does the exact same thing, as does American, as does Lufthansa...and so on. You just didn't know about it. The one issue here I have is how the security officers reacted in this situation. I don't think it was necessary to use THAT MUCH physical force. This just an unfortunate situation made worse but a number of factors. Some within and some outside of the airlines and passengers control. Yes, I am an airline employee who has worked in an operational control center for the last 15 years, so if you have any questions I would be more than happy to answer them. I have seen it all. Don't think I don't care about the passengers. Trust me, I have been one and always am one. Its my passion and I have been there done that with all of you. Most importantly though, these passengers pay my salary. So don't think i don't care.
Yet there has been absolutely no accounts about a physical struggle outside of the plane or when he reboarded. I understand being a skeptic but isnt this just pure speculation on your part? Why not argue his nose was already broken too, it's possible right? In this case, there should be no doubt that United will settle right? So in what may possibly be one of the most high profiles PI settlements we've seen lately, it does absolutely nothing for Dao or his attorney to falsify his damages, especially one that could be proven, albeit difficult like you said, false. Exaggerate? Maybe. Falsify? Very doubtful.
Sure. But not swallowing it blindly, the multiple videos and eyewitness accounts seemingly support the injuries being claimed IMO.
I'm not sure video proves anyone lost teeth, was knocked unconscious (it actually kinda refutes this), or suffered a concussion. Eye-witness testimony is horribly unreliable and it doesn't serve as any better evidence of the above 3 statuses than a video would (in fact, it's likely worse). Of course it's a moot point because this won't go to trial, where these things could be verified, so it'll just be a he-said-she-feels kind of situation where anybody who wants to support their own pre-drawn conclusion can believe whatever they want. If I'm a personal injury lawyer, I'm calling up every dentist I know of who will support my claim that my client needs his 2 front teeth replaced and giving my client a script to read off of that would guarantee a sure-fire diagnosis of a concussion to a doctor. Just call me Lionel Hutz!
It's 38 pages because it resonates with people that fly on airlines and feel like you have no rights and get pushed around for random reasons (ie paying customer getting bumped on a plane because someone else more "important" wanted the seats) . I think most folks don't even care if it's Dr Dao or whomever.
So you are perfectly fine with your flight getting canceled because I refused to give up my seat and allowing your crew to make their connecting flight to service your flight? Somehow I suspect your opinion would be very different if you were on the receiving end.
