re: United's dragged passenger hires high-powered Chicago personal injury lawyer

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They had the legal right to remove the unruly passenger

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WRONG! Why do you idiots keep saying this? EVERY aviation attorney has stated very clearly, once they let him through the gate he is entitled to that seat. Only way to remove him from the seat is if he is a threat. You can't illegally bump a passenger and then claim he was a threat.

Damn this is so simple yet we still have idiots that can't comprehend it.

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I believe the CEO was quoted as saying it was not overbooked.

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The CEO and the official spokesman both chose the word overbooked. I had not seen anywhere it being stated as oversold. If so then either someone had a snafu, or the PR dept is suggesting to be contrite admit mistakes pay the man and try and save face.

LINK

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Did they? We had a back and forth yesterday because you kept posting the same quote which was "overbooked" and I tried for a couple of pages to explain the difference to you and why United chose the verbiage.

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Imo this is a moot point anyway. They did not offer the maximum amount guaranteed by law, so they didn't care if they had the contractual legal ability to remove him or not. They wanted him gone, did what they wanted. They didn't follow multiple protocols, whether that was a gate attendant being an idiot or someone higher up I don't know.

But the fact of the matter is I don't think it matters if it was oversold or overbought or anything, by contract they have to offer him a greater amount and they did not do this so I think it's very likely they broke the contract first.

If they would of simply said, by contract on your ticket we have to offer you X amount and then we have the legal ability to kick you off. I don't think this escalates, or another passenger accepts the money. Because United didn't do this, the situation escalated. So that's on United imo.

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Assuming this goes to court- how do you think that plays out to a jury/judge?

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I'm no expert, but I'd guess United would lose, since every expert seems to lean that way.

Honest question, if you're fairly certain(you seem to be) that UA would win, so why would multiple experts miss some pretty key and seemingly obvious information?

FWIW, I haven't seen multiple aviation attorneys also saying UA was correct here. And even if they did, it would still suggest this is simply unclear.

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Jonathan Guerin and Maddie King

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Both appear to be in the PR dept. Looks like the PR dept is taking over and UA is trying to step up and take the hit and move on rather than fight a battle in the court of public opinion. IMO, whether they legally had the right or not this should have been their first step. It also appears they are refunding tickets for the entire flight LINK.

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Or it was not oversold.

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If not for the social media age and smart phones this would have went to court where UA would still contend that it was oversold. While I still think UA was stupid for what unfolded I think the end result will shift overbooked/oversold flights further into the passengers favor moving forward, so this was a good thing (minus the pill mill dr getting a concussion).

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Not sure if you meant to respond to me, but I am not certain UA would win. I am certain it would be a disaster economically if it makes it to a courtroom.

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Sorry my fault, I read that reply as coming from AwesomeSauce.

Ignore.

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Both appear to be in the PR dept. Looks like the PR dept is taking over and UA is trying to step up and take the hit and move on rather than fight a battle in the court of public opinion. IMO, whether they legally had the right or not this should have been their first step. It also appears they are refunding tickets for the entire flight

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It also looks like the flight was not oversold, because United is telling us that.

I mean, still acting like it was 100% certain that it was NOT oversold despite United and multiple experts in the field saying otherwise, it's just odd. Can you at least see from my angle how that seem very peculiar?

What he is saying is that 'must rides' may be able to at any time change the status of a full flight. He is saying it's possible oversold is they literally 'sold' too many tickets and 'overbooked' is they had 'must rides' added that are contractually allowed.

I understand what he is saying, and we don't know if UA is using certain lingo or not here. It could be either way.

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Honest question, if you're fairly certain(you seem to be) that UA would win, so why would multiple experts miss some pretty key and seemingly obvious information?

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I think the key would be defining when a flight is oversold. Given that the definition is not clearly stated in the code of carriage it would ultimately come down to the judges decision here. I've spent most of the time here merely playing devil's advocate and dismissing poorly formatted argument in favor of the passenger. I believe that ultimately a judge would award a decision in favor of the plaintiff if his legal representation effectively argued the premise that the suggested check-in and UA allowing him to check-in and fully make his way onto the plane took away UA's ability to enforce procedure for an oversold situation. This would be the passenger's only case for a civil suit against UA. If his legal team could not provide precedent or establish an argument greater than what UA's legal team would present then it would be cut and dry for UA. I think the weight of the argument would be defining "check-in" from UA's code of carriage, and the better legal team would win. Anyone saying it's cut and dry one way or another, prior to UA turning spokesman ability over to their PR team and waiving the white flag and their defense in a civil case, must know of some overwhelming precedent that would quickly sway this case in the plaintiff's direction.

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I think the key would be defining when a flight is oversold. Given that the definition is not clearly stated in the code of carriage it would ultimately come down to the judges decision here. I've spent most of the time here merely playing devil's advocate and dismissing poorly formatted argument in favor of the passenger

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So we basically agree, while both playing devil's advocate on opposite sides.

Message board life, at its finest.