AviationSupreme Court: airlines not liable for exaggerating in describing possible air emergency
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that when an airline reports to TSA about an individual who might pose a potential danger, the airline may not be held liable if its report contained exaggerations and minor falsehoods. Air Wisconsin terminated the employment of a pilot who failed several required tests, and who became extremely agitated and disruptive during the fourth, and last, test. In its report to TSA, the airline described the pilot as “mentally unstable.” The fired pilot sued the airline for describing him as mentally unstable, and a Colorado jury awarded him $1.2 million in damages. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said “a few inaptly chosen words” were not enough to support the verdict. “Baggage handlers, flight attendants, gate agents, and other airline employees who report suspicious behavior to the TSA should not face financial ruin if, in the heat of a potential threat, they fail to choose their words with exacting care,” she wrote. A federal law — the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 — gives airline employees broad immunity from lawsuits for reports of suspicious activities.
William Hoeper, a pilot for Air Wisconsin, failed several tests he was required to pass to qualify to fly a new kind of aircraft the airline was bringing into service. After failing three tests in a row, Hoeper became irritated and ended the fourth test abruptly, cursing the test team and shouting obscenities. Air Wisconsin put Hoeper on a flight to his home in Denver and, after consultations between the test team and company executives, terminated his employment and informed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that Hoeper was no longer a pilot with the company.
In the report Air Wisconsin submitted to the TSA about the reasons for Hoeper termination, the company, in addition to listing Hoeper’s failures on a series of required tests, said that he was “mentally unstable” and that he might be carrying a gun.
Shortly after he was terminated, he was planning a trip on a private family business, but when he was in the process of boarding the plane, this time as a passenger, TSA agents stopped him, removed him from the line, questioned him, and searched him for the gun he was supposed to be carrying.
Hoeper sued Air Wisconsin, claiming that while it was factually correct to report his failures on the flight tests, it was factually incorrect to assert that his behavior during the fourth test was evidence that he was mentally unstable, or that he might be carrying a gun.
A Colorado jury agreed, and awarded him $1.2 million in damages.
Air Wisconsin appealed, and the cass —Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper, No. 12-315 – reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The New York Times reports that on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that an airlines may not be held liable for minor falsehoods in warning the authorities about potential threats to air security.
The court also threw out a jury’s $1.2 million award.
The justices were unanimous in ruling that the Colorado Supreme Court had applied the wrong legal standard in upholding the jury award when it said that untrue statements may give rise to liability. The U.S. Supreme Court, drawing on its libel decisions, said that only materially false statements should count.
The justices, however, split 6 to 3 over whether the variance between what the airline had told TSA about Hoeper and what was strictly true was broad enough to allow the suit. Hoeper would not be fired until a day after he abruptly left the fourth test; was authorized to carry a gun as a flight deck officer, though he was unarmed that day; and was upset and agitated but perhaps not “mentally unstable.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said “a few inaptly chosen words” were not enough to support the verdict.
“Baggage handlers, flight attendants, gate agents, and other airline employees who report suspicious behavior to the TSA should not face financial ruin if, in the heat of a potential threat, they fail to choose their words with exacting care,” she wrote.
Dissenting on this point, Justice Antonin Scalia said the court had decided too much and should have instead sent the case back to the lower courts to apply the correct legal standard. He said it was hardly clear that the airline’s characterization of the pilot’s conduct was materially accurate. In particular, he said, Hoeper’s frustration and anger may not have entitled the airline to call him “mentally unstable.” Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan joined the partial dissent.
Justice Sotomayor responded that Hoeper was not an ordinary traveler, partly because he was authorized to carry a firearm. “Hoeper was not some traveling businessman who yelled at a barista in a fit of pique over a badly brewed cup of coffee,” she wrote.
The Times notes that the case, Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper, No. 12-315, concerned a federal law, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001. It gave airline employees broad immunity from lawsuits for reports of suspicious activities.
The law, however, had an exception for statements made with knowing falsity or reckless disregard of the truth. This exception is based on the “actual malice” standard in the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan.
In the part of her opinion which was unanimous, Justice Sotomayor said the defamation standard must be adapted to fit the 2001 law. Materiality for purposes of libel suits, she said, turns on whether the statement “affects the subject’s reputation in the community.”
In the context of the 2001 law, she wrote, “we care whether a falsehood affects the authorities’ perception of and response to a given threat.”
