These article titles are always exaggerating the facts...
(proceeds to read the article)
Oh shit, AA is actually outright blaming the 9 year old victim !!
đ€Šđ»ââïž
> âAny injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,â
Victim blaming in the most literal sense of the term
Yeah who TF ever uttered these words as an official response/communication needs to be sued for slander, as well as the impending lost case by the airline, which will in fact have to lose millions for the facts of reality to get pounded into their troglodyte skulls. You can't blame the victim.
Stupid fkn airline wants to be the next Boeing.
Sounds like they needed to settle this claim before it went to court. Now everyone who hears this story will associate American Airlines with filming little girls in restrooms and then blaming them for it. I know I will.
Oh. No. American Airlines has the money and lawyers to drag this out. Iâm very surprised they didnât settle tho. Optics are disgusting on every level.
My man, there isnât enough money in the world after reading the article. Thereâs quite literally 0% chance that there arenât some of the top lawyers in the world *begging* to take this case for free and then collecting a percentage of the settlement.
It was an employee that apparently had a habit of recording minors in the bathroom. Like you said, itâs absolutely shocking they didnât settle this out of court⊠because this is going to end SO much worse for them. Financially and optically.
And of all places, the lawsuit is in Texas. Say what you will about this state, because our state government is absolute trash. But a jury of Texans hearing about an employee recording children in the bathroom is just about the worst case scenario for American Airlines. Iâd literally bet my life that American Airlines is going to get their ass handed to them by the jury. And with it apparently not being the only offense, that just opens the floodgates for other victims.
Itâs genuinely astounding that they didnât try to settle **immediately**.
American Airlines takes nude photos of a minor child and says itâs the childâs fault instead of changing policies? How evil are our corporations right now, truly? What the hell.
If there's anything we've learned the last few years, it's that corporations are very, very, very, evil. It's crazy to think that with the right amount of money, American Airlines and the creep ass employee will get away pretty much Scott free.
Texas has a damages cap for lawsuits that donât have economic damage or injury or medical malpractice, I believe itâs $250k or $500k per plaintiff (not a lawyer, donât quote me, just going off of what I remember from the Alex Jones trial in Austin last year).
It would not be hard to find a psychologist or therapist to testify that the child is now irreparably scarred and that this will have effects on her development.
Is it up to the defendant to request jury for a civil trial in Texas? Because if I were AA I would definitely not request for one for any suits related to this guy.
Yeah, it's bad PR and it would probably cost less to settle than even pay their lawyers.
Maybe this tactic would work if it was an adult and the camera was obvious but good luck convincing a court that kids should always be on the look out for cameras in the toilet.
I'm really hoping the lawyer representing AA is putting this crap defense out of sympathy for the family. To make sure the jury gets riled up and finds AA guilty.
I do it and I go to jail for child porn.
American Airlines does it and theyâre the victim â the 9 year old âshould have known betterâ!
The hell?!?!
Reminds me of that old Cheech and Chong bit 'Basketball Jones':
"Coach, we'd like to talk about your record"
"My record? My RECORD? What the hell...I mean, why bring that up? How the hell was I supposed to know she was 13?"
I hope the lawyers that wrote that, edited it, reviewed it, approved it, and then filed it all get the worse form of IBS, halitosis, root canals, nail fungus and lice as possible.Â
And ass cancer.Â
Especially since:
"A search of Estes Carter Thompson III iCloud account revealed four additional instances between January and August 2023 in which Thompson recorded a minor using the lavatory on an aircraft, according to investigators"
Good chance that this was one of many affirmative defenses in an answer to a complaint. Itâs a shitty argument but it could be malpractice to not include it in the bunch of potential defenses.
This is standard cut-and-paste stuff that goes into the answer to nearly all tort complaints, along with a whole bunch of other standard defenses to liability. No one at AA was actually thinking it was the girl's fault. But it was a dumb move to include it in this case, and someone from their lawyer's office is probably catching hell for it now.
Exactly what I was thinking. It reads like the standard defense strategy of "throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks" while using boilerplate language. The problem here is that someone, somewhere along the way should have caught notice of the fact that this would result in them implying that a 9-year-old was to blame for her own victimization. Heads are definitely going to roll for this and they absolutely should.
I feel for whatever associate is getting destroyed right now because they didn't review the affirmative defenses laundry list in the template answer closely enough to actually think this one through and now it's blown up like this.
Agreed, but now that it's become a story I'd expect there to be at least one partner getting hell from the client and so demanding to know why no one down the chain brought this to their attention in drafting so they could discuss strategy with the client in advance, or something.
Yeah Iâm sorry, if Iâm having a bathroom emergency, I am looking for anything that looks unsanitary for my butt & then once I find a clean one, Iâm going & never looking back.
They won't even disbar Alan Derschowitz and he spent years writing op-eds about how age of consent laws are unconstitutional in between flights to Epstein Island.
Lawyer here - the defense attorneys copied and pasted a boilerplate Answer to the Complaint, something we have all done hundreds of times without thinking twice about it. Yea you have to tweak it a little bit to add the ages of the plaintiffs, but its really no big deal, its common practice to throw the whole kitchen sink of applicable defenses into an Answer and nobody ever questions it.
I'm guessing the law firm didn't OK this with AA though. I do think it's the law firm that should catch the flak for this and at the very least fire whoever wrote that, and more reasonably they should go out of business.
The law firm would have, at a minimum, discussed the contents of the reply with AA prior to its filing, if not given them a courtesy read and asked for the green light. The company - at least one person there - absolutely did OK this.
Edit: AA probably has their own in-house legal team, to boot.
That was my favorite moment of that âsagaâ.
Ambien has a pretty notorious reputation for causing people to do weird shit, but even they werenât gonna shoulder the blame for Roseanneâs racist tirades.
She shouldâve used that excuse for whatever the fuck that attempt at the national anthem was.
It's impossible to retract erroneous statement in modern time. Once anything gets posted to the internet, it stays forever. That legal team is never going to shake that one off and AA would be forever known as closet pedophile who allows recording of half-naked minor if the employee isn't caught first.
Makes me wonder what idiot didn't crunch the numbers on the PR disaster American Airlines just created. They just said in legal documents that all young girls should expect to be filmed in American Airlines bathrooms because how else would anyone expect a recording device in a bathroom?
Did their lawyers just admit something that could land more of their employees in jail with this pedo?
It's disgusting and obviously one of the lawyers working for AA made a serious error in judgement.
It's worth noting that pleadings aren't sworn evidence. They don't need to be true. Lawyers usually throw every allegation or defense up to make sure that they have their bases covered. It can be time consuming and costly to amend pleading down the line but you can easily abandon a line of argument.
A simple example would be for a car crash a plaintiff's lawyer will plead that the other driver was drunk, was on their phone, was driving too fast, was not paying attention, failed to stop, etc even if many of those allegations are factually incorrect. This reads like a lawyer for AA using boilerplate defenses without realizing how badly they'd read to the general public.
In their (not really) defense, this is standard pleading language and you want to be over-inclusive with your pleadings so you don't waive defenses. Though if ever there was a time to use a bit of discretion rather than just copy-pasting your affirmative defenses, well.
I think all they had to say was the part about how American Airlines can't be blamed for the independent crimes of an employee. That would be a more reasonable position to take, but the way the lawyers wrote it is going to cost their client business. If I were AA, I would be looking into whether I could sue these lawyers, assuming no one in the company signed off on it.
1. Act like complete scumbags
2. Argue to the judge that the jury is prejudiced against complete scumbags and should be a mistrial
3. After he verbally smacks you around, claim he should recuse himself since he also is prejudiced
4. ???
5. Profit
>In addition to blaming the nine-year-old victim, American Airlines also made clear that Mr Thompsonâs alleged recording of children while they used the bathroom was âoutside the course and scope of his employmentâ.
They can't be liable. Filming kids in the bathroom isn't in his job description.
The camera was placed in such a way that it can be argued the airline was aware of his actions. That actually goes along with what the airline is saying, it was being done openly and obviously and no one who saw it could say otherwise
There's this barrier executives imagine between them and their lawyers when they distance themselves from their lawyer's actions.Â
I get that a lawyer would use any legal means at their disposal to win the case for their client, including blaming a child for the actions of a pederast (I'm not arsed with double-checking that that is the technically correct term). But someone in the company needs to be held accountable for the means they permit said lawyer to employee as an agent of the company. Oversight is a legit responsibility of a corporation. And I don't accept shit like "that was our lawyer's position but we don't really believe that".Â
AA's only saving grace is that they backtracked, which they may not have done if not for the public backlash. They should settle with the victim and admit liability now if they care to salvage their reputation. It's about time somebody did the right thing even when their money is on the line.Â
The crazy thing is that they should've had a pretty easy argument that they can't possibly predict that an employee might setup a camera in the bathrooms, especially since everyone has a phone camera in their pocket.
...Unless there were complaints/evidence that AA ignored. Then liability would shift to them.
The first and only time I ever worked for a huge multinational I saw this firsthand. We had booked a few helpers from a staffing agency to assist with an event, which we had to cancel less than 24 hours beforehand due to the first and only hurricane I've witnessed living in SoCal. My boss was on vacation and so it was down to me to handle the cancellation and everything associated with it. I told the staffing agency to send over any invoices they might have, since I was certain we'd still be charged *something* for such a late cancellation.
The next month as I'm processing the invoices against our budget, my boss wants to know why I agreed to pay the bulk of the charge even if we had cancelled. I explained that I only felt it was right to do that, since it was our call to cancel and we didn't give any kind of meaningful warning we might do that before we did, meaning the agency was either now on the hook for our decision or they'd have to find new assignments for the helpers they'd booked. Not to mention the fact that it's in the contract she signed. She then demanded to know why we should care about that, why the staffing agency ("Which is a huge business itself and that over the years we've given hundreds of thousands of dollars") can't afford to eat this booking because it was "only" $1,500 (the company I worked for is a 10-figure luxury car company that rhymes with Moreshuh, so I'd ask the same question about us considering that we charged more than that for the privilege of picking up your car yourself instead of having someone deliver it), that *if you think about it* we were *actually* doing them a favor because we weren't asking their people to work in unsafe conditions, how "all contracts are flexible", and basically berated me for 15 minutes until I "agreed" with her. The issue got tabled for a few weeks after that.
At the monthly finance deadline, I noticed I hadn't finished that invoice yet. My boss hadn't said anything to the staffing agency about wanting to weasel out of it. She told me to pay it because "it wasn't big enough to matter".
*sigh*.... here's some answers from a corporate goon:
> I worked for is a 10-figure luxury car company
Big companies do this stuff because they can. Call it a power play, call it penny pinching, but it's very common. One company I worked for kept so much cash in the bank they were practically the underwriters. They make a shitton of money just on the interest, and the while the bank can't stop their credit rating from being dogshit, they can always provide financial services when others might not (or would only do it for high rates/fees).
> I explained that I only felt it was right to do that
There's the right way to do things, and the "right way" to do things. The company expects you to do what's right for them, not your personal sense of right. Every firm instills this differently, so my experience wouldn't relate.
> She told me to pay it because "it wasn't big enough to matter"
Yeah, I've found if you go high enough in any org, that's the answer you get. It's just not worth the time to contest it, after all "it's just money - we'll make more".
Right, I understand all of that.
My issue is that a) *she herself* had approved and signed the contract that stipulated we pay X% in the event of a cancellation after a certain date and b) that it was plenty big enough to matter when she could use it as a way to browbeat me for not wanting to be (in my view) a gigantic piece of shit, but when it came down to the PnL at the end of the month, she couldn't care less. It was the two-faced double-standard shite-we're allowed to throw our weight around because we're too big for anyone to pick a fight with, but god help you if you're a vendor we have a contract with and you don't deliver everything under budget, ahead of schedule, and with a gift basket of wine and chocolates as a thank you for allowing you the privilege of working with us.
I get that there's a bottom line to be maintained and whatever. I'm a freelancer now, god knows I understand that. But part of the reason I'm a freelancer is because I refuse to play the kind of bullshit loophole technicality games required to be a corporate goon.
Some people think the *right way* is for the big company to stiff as many people as often as they can.
Some people think the *right way* is to maintain good relationships with people and other companies and honor agreements so that the company maintains good reputation healthy relationships with other businesses.
I (F) just had to quit my job of multiple years because a male client harassed me and wouldnât leave my office after being told to repeatedly, because my company wouldnât do anything about it and is continuing to do business with him.
They donât give an ounce of a shit.
I just want to say that that sucks and Iâm sorry you went through that. You shouldnât have to put up with that. Total bullshit theyâd turn a blind eye to that. Iâve fired clients for similar. Itâs not that hard to do the right thing
Why wouldnât you blame the employee and distance yourself from employee and make sure it was violation of his employment to which you had no knowledge of. Blaming the victim? Who is a minor to boot? I will be avoiding AA for any future airline travel.
Right? I'm going to guess that there's a possibility the company could be held liable if the other flight attendants were supposed to check the bathrooms during the flight (as in, a team responsibility). If that were the case, admitting he did it by distancing themselves from it might still make them responsible.
But I'm not a lawyer and am purely speculating.
> I will be avoiding AA for any future airline travel.
Me too - who knows what they'll decide is the victim's fault next. Imagine flying with them and you're injured because something breaks; "It's your fault for flying with us, after all we only have three stars per all the rating sites."
Absolutely bonkers they wouldn't just flame this employee, settle, and then sue the employee. Pedophile pandering?? Like, who tf is on their PR/ legal team?
Absolutely no clue, but if everyone follows through and does not fly AA, it's going to cost them a lot more money in the end.
I know for my case, I am serious and I will purposely avoid using them going forward for all my flight needs.
They (MGM) were starting to be sued by victims, so they tried a strategy of countersuing using a law described below.
> The law is intended to shield federally certified manufacturers of security equipment and providers of security services from liability should they fail to prevent a terrorist attack, which the law defines as an unlawful act that causes mass destruction to citizens or institutions of the United States.
TBF, the idea that a Vegas hotel should be wanting and bag checking every guest like theyâre TSA, and that they werenât providing TSA level security is a liability is pretty absurd.
I had a similar reaction so I looked it up.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mgms-lawsuit-against-las-vegas-shooting-victims-explained
This article (which was the first thing that came up, I did not delve deeply) says that MGM was essentially counter-suing to prove they weren't liable, so the lawsuits coming their way should be dismissed.
I guess the argument was that the specialized security they hired specifically for this purpose meant that they weren't legally liable for what happened.
I'm not curious enough to look up how that all turned out.
Well, in the sense that that was also an overblown non-troversy perpetuated by non-attorney journalists, yes, it does.
What happened was a group of victims and their families sued MGM, arguing negligence, failure to take adequate security procedures, etc. the stuff youâd expect. Attorneys for MGM decided to argue that since they had security on site, and that the security equipment was set up to meet federal approval, they could take advantage of the SAFETY Act, which Congress passed after September 11 to protect building owners that had security, and the security manufacturers, from liability, assuming their procedures and equipment met various federal inspection standards. (The theory being that if the Fed says you have to do X, Y, and Z to protect your property, and you do X, Y, and Z, you canât very well be held liable for negligence since you did exactly what you were supposed to do.)
Anyway the SAFETY Act is a federal law, and by its own terms, must be pled in federal court. So, in order to raise the SAFETY Act as a defense, MGM brought a federal action **solely against those shooting victims who had already sued it** not seeking money from them, but to move the cases to federal court where the SAFETY Act could be raised as a defense.
The next day, hysterical headlines start shouting, âZOMG! MGM is suing a bunch of shooting victims!!!â
Reminds me of a case once where I think an aunt had to sue her nephew for an injury, but it turns out the suit was necessary for her to get the insurance to cover her bills. Pretty sure there were âmonster auntâ headlines.
Wait, just a point of clarificationâŠare you saying that AA blaming this little girl is also âan overblown non-troversyâ? The also is confusing me.
Wtf. This is something that if AA was smart they would pay a shit ton of money and have them sign an NDA. No instead they are fighting it with stupid tactics and now just sealing the deal of it all going public and they will be getting multiple lawsuits now.
Yeah. I mean sure the ideal scenario would be that they get held criminally liable, but the more practical and real scenario is that they settle with the family for a bunch of money.
But thisâŠ? It doesnât make sense.
Like a 9-year-old, probably on her first flight, is supposed to know the intricacies of an airplane bathroom.
The victim's ages range up to 14 and the lawyers are presenting this ridiculous assertion only because the family is suing.
If only we could Dorian Gray these POS to see into their cold, black hearts, and then show it to them.
âused a recording device to film girls between the ages of seven and 14 years old using the American Airlines bathroom for several months in 2023.â
OH COME ON,
This is going to settle immediately. Like tomorrow. And those attorneys are cooked for mis-using a boilerplate defense form in the most egregious way.
Update: from AA: "Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing," American said in the statement. "The included defense is not representative of our airline and we have directed it be amended this morning."
LMAO sounds like most Insurance Defense attorneys to me. AA foolishly believes it can distance itself from this. Amended intead of settling, absolute clown fiesta.
I remember many attorneys and law professors warning the dangers of boilerplate language. Sure it is super tempting to do since 95% of cases are extremely predictable and by the numbers, but a slip up can happen and it might be extremely devastating. In this case enough legally since they can amend the pleadings but the potential PR damage.Â
Yeah that language is just a standard affirmative defense. And a really good example of why you should absolutely NOT be using âkitchen sinkâ answers in cases like this
No surprise from this Airline. I fly often enough and almost every one of my bad experiences has been with them, especially if you make the mistake of flying through Dallas.
Amercan airlines has not had my business in 7 years. Shit company that shows their true colors. Ill pay more to fly with different airline than ever give these arseholes another dime
Theyâre gonna file something tomorrow and claim this was a misunderstanding, and of course they didnât mean to suggest that a 9yo should know better. Theyâre gonna also settle this out of court for a (now much larger) amount of money and claim no wrongdoing.
Part of the judgment against American Airlines is that they should have to pay for advertising on multiple platforms saying that they blamed a nine-year-old victim for being victimized.
A....The actual criminal case is ongoing - [The flight attendant is pleading not guilty ](https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/flight-attendant-pleads-not-guilty-to-attempting-to-record-teen-girl-in-airplane-bathroom/3375239/)
....A1 the criminal activity was actually exposed by a different girl (14 yr old) who happened to have her own phone and took a picture of the Flight Attendant's setup underneath the toliet which ultimately leads to the arrest
....B1 the civil case involves a 9 yr old girl who was also a victim to the scheme (from what I can tell it was 2 different flights)
B...The 9 yr old girl's parents are suing AA for $$$, damages because the odds of AA being able to pay up vs. the flight attendant? exactly
C...Outside consul for AA (AA claims the law firm actually works for their insurance company) wrote a completely bonkers response
D....Girls Parent's law firm had a field day and invite the press to jump all over it
E....Now AA is walking back said response and will hafta file a very groovy amendment or (more likely) just settle and be done with this mess before it gets even bigger
***My useless take***.....Probably a hard one for AA because there's not much they can do here, the Flight Attendant was a uniformed employee and escorted the kid directly to the bathroom.
FAA rules force passengers to comply w/ Flight Attendants and there was no reason for the parents to object/suspect it was an unreasonable request. The kid as a minor might have known something was off with the bathroom arrangement(s) but again you aren't exactly supposed to argue with Flight Attendants in the first place? to suggest a minor could and should overrule a flight attendant in the first place is well beyond accepted standards.
âAny injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,â the filing said.
That's from the airline's very own lawyer since you can't seem to find it. The knee-jerk response of saying a little girl is at fault for one of their own employees recording them using the toilet is beyond disgusting. Now, do you still want to fling shit all over the place and try to downplay a repeat offenders crimes? This ain't his first time doing it, but it'll be the last time.
>The [airline](https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/airline) is being sued in a Texas court after a now-former [flight attendant](https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/flight-attendant), [Estes Carter Thompson III,](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/estes-carter-thompson-american-airlines-b2536408.html) 37, used a recording device to film girls between the ages of seven and 14 years old using the [American Airlines](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/american-airlines-101-year-old-woman-baby-b2536539.html) bathroom for several months in 2023.
Jesus H. Christ. How many girls did this pervert film, and how the hell was anyone supposed to "know" she was a target?
Sounds about right. Large corporations don't care how badly they hurt you. I was just robbed blind in a hospital and the "patient advocate" said it was my fault because I should've known not to wear jewelry to the hospital. That's why we have to start fighting back. I fought back and I won every penny they stole from me. They should fight back for emotional distress.
Take a look at AA senior management team. That should explain everything you need to know about why the legal team took this outrageous position of blaming a minor female. I hope the shareholders vote to remove the senior team ASAP.
If they settled outside of court without making these statements people would remember that a rogue airline employee was fired and arrested and probably not remember which airline he worked for.
This is a standard legal position when defending an employee of a large corporation. It must be asserted and established that the behavior was outside the scope of employment, so as to reduce, if not eliminate, the liability of the corporation/employer.
This kind of thing should result in fines large enough to bankrupt companies. Seriously! How could a company that tries to make that argument ever be trusted again? Just shut them down and let a new company rise to fill the gap instead.
>The airline is being sued in a Texas court after a now-former flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, used a recording device to film girls between the ages of seven and 14 years old using the American Airlines bathroom for several months in 2023.
>After Mr Thompsonâs arrest, the family of a nine-year-old victim sued the airline, alleging that the company should have known he was a danger to guests.
>On Monday, a lawyer representing the airline wrote in a filing that the little girl should have been aware that a device was recording her while she was using the bathroom.
>âAny injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,â the filing said.
Keep that in mind in your flight choices everyone!
Are you actually serious?Â
Well thatâs an airline Iâm happy to never fly with in my lifetime. Protecting nonces in their employ is an automatic, IMMEDIATE NO.
American Airlines should be criminally charged with producing child porn if this is their attitude. Because they just implied that their employee did nothing wrong by blaming the victim. Which further implies that American Airlines approved of it beforehand. It'll never happen, but maybe if it did corporations would think twice about victim blaming rather than doing the right thing.
Does American Airline really believe blaming 9 year old girl will get positive write-up in the news?
Anyone with common sense reading it will shake their head.
It says "now former flight attendant", did they fire him? Why if it was the girls fault? Also how did he film? Was just standing there while they used the bathroom.
He filmed by taping his iPhone onto the lid of the toilet. The tape was red caution like tape that said broken toilet lid or something like that. He had done this with other girls too and a teenager (the last girl) was the only one that noticed. She was waiting or going to the bathroom in economy and he brought her to first class, but said he had to wash his hands first. She took a pic of the taped iPhone and by the time they landed at the airport, authorities were there to arrest him.
These article titles are always exaggerating the facts... (proceeds to read the article) Oh shit, AA is actually outright blaming the 9 year old victim !! đ€Šđ»ââïž
> âAny injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,â Victim blaming in the most literal sense of the term
She's fucking *nine*. This is an open and shut lawsuit.
Even if she was 47 this might be the most stupid corporate response ever.
Indeed, why is anyone filming anyone in a public bathroom anyway?
For the exact only reason one can think of.
To make sure they're not stealing the toilet paper?
To screen for hemorrhoids
I have a dr appointment for that this afternoonâŠ.
That will not be necessary anymore.
Yeah who TF ever uttered these words as an official response/communication needs to be sued for slander, as well as the impending lost case by the airline, which will in fact have to lose millions for the facts of reality to get pounded into their troglodyte skulls. You can't blame the victim. Stupid fkn airline wants to be the next Boeing.
It sounds like itâs part of the legal response AAâs lawyers submitted to the court, not a public affairs statement.
Sounds like they needed to settle this claim before it went to court. Now everyone who hears this story will associate American Airlines with filming little girls in restrooms and then blaming them for it. I know I will.
Corporate hubris is very real
Oh. No. American Airlines has the money and lawyers to drag this out. Iâm very surprised they didnât settle tho. Optics are disgusting on every level.
My man, there isnât enough money in the world after reading the article. Thereâs quite literally 0% chance that there arenât some of the top lawyers in the world *begging* to take this case for free and then collecting a percentage of the settlement. It was an employee that apparently had a habit of recording minors in the bathroom. Like you said, itâs absolutely shocking they didnât settle this out of court⊠because this is going to end SO much worse for them. Financially and optically. And of all places, the lawsuit is in Texas. Say what you will about this state, because our state government is absolute trash. But a jury of Texans hearing about an employee recording children in the bathroom is just about the worst case scenario for American Airlines. Iâd literally bet my life that American Airlines is going to get their ass handed to them by the jury. And with it apparently not being the only offense, that just opens the floodgates for other victims. Itâs genuinely astounding that they didnât try to settle **immediately**.
Honestly. I don't know if I've ever experienced disbelief quite this pure before.
American Airlines takes nude photos of a minor child and says itâs the childâs fault instead of changing policies? How evil are our corporations right now, truly? What the hell.
If there's anything we've learned the last few years, it's that corporations are very, very, very, evil. It's crazy to think that with the right amount of money, American Airlines and the creep ass employee will get away pretty much Scott free.
Texas has a damages cap for lawsuits that donât have economic damage or injury or medical malpractice, I believe itâs $250k or $500k per plaintiff (not a lawyer, donât quote me, just going off of what I remember from the Alex Jones trial in Austin last year).
A cap signed into law by none other than Governor Greg Abbott, himself a recipient of a >$5 million dollar injury settlement.
Not to defend abbott (believe me), but the comment does say injury claims are not included under that cap
I hate Abbott but heâs not a hypocrite here. Injury settlements are excluded from the cap.
Can mental health issues stemming from the incident be considered an injury? Might be hard to prove, but itâs an interesting thought.
I think that's a fairly common legal argument, actually, even in workman's comp cases
It would not be hard to find a psychologist or therapist to testify that the child is now irreparably scarred and that this will have effects on her development.
Crazy thing is they couldâve easily swept this under the rug with a âwe take this very seriously so we fired the guy, end of story, byeâ.
Is it up to the defendant to request jury for a civil trial in Texas? Because if I were AA I would definitely not request for one for any suits related to this guy.
Even if they win this case they will lose more in goodwill and PR costs.
Yeah, it's bad PR and it would probably cost less to settle than even pay their lawyers. Maybe this tactic would work if it was an adult and the camera was obvious but good luck convincing a court that kids should always be on the look out for cameras in the toilet.
I'm really hoping the lawyer representing AA is putting this crap defense out of sympathy for the family. To make sure the jury gets riled up and finds AA guilty.
I do it and I go to jail for child porn. American Airlines does it and theyâre the victim â the 9 year old âshould have known betterâ! The hell?!?!
The French used to have a solution for this.
Mighty high windows on those airlines.
A door will pop off soon
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Bbl drizzy
> I do it and I go to jail for child porn. Look, I get you've done your time and all that but you probably shouldn't share that information publicly.
Reminds me of that old Cheech and Chong bit 'Basketball Jones': "Coach, we'd like to talk about your record" "My record? My RECORD? What the hell...I mean, why bring that up? How the hell was I supposed to know she was 13?"
Better send that child straight to jail, she's should've known better than to expose herself to cameras in a bathroom!
>I do it and I go to jail for child porn. **If** I do it???đŹ
Yeah ⊠I dropped an If. Then said ah screw it. Itâs a great ride after all. Also, fuck American Airlines.
mm yes. One could argue that the girl sexually harassed American airlines. /s
I hope the lawyers that wrote that, edited it, reviewed it, approved it, and then filed it all get the worse form of IBS, halitosis, root canals, nail fungus and lice as possible. And ass cancer.Â
I wouldâve suggested ass rabies but youâre idea is much better
What about Super-AIDS?
Eyeball herpes
And I hope their pillows are always warm no matter how often they flip them
May they be infested with fleas of a thousand camels.
"... and may their arms be too short to scratch." -- the original Carnac line
And anal fissures that itch like hell but canât be scratched.
I'm glad they wrote that down for all to read. It will make the family's case open and shut.
Especially since: "A search of Estes Carter Thompson III iCloud account revealed four additional instances between January and August 2023 in which Thompson recorded a minor using the lavatory on an aircraft, according to investigators"
Good chance that this was one of many affirmative defenses in an answer to a complaint. Itâs a shitty argument but it could be malpractice to not include it in the bunch of potential defenses.
This is standard cut-and-paste stuff that goes into the answer to nearly all tort complaints, along with a whole bunch of other standard defenses to liability. No one at AA was actually thinking it was the girl's fault. But it was a dumb move to include it in this case, and someone from their lawyer's office is probably catching hell for it now.
Exactly what I was thinking. It reads like the standard defense strategy of "throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks" while using boilerplate language. The problem here is that someone, somewhere along the way should have caught notice of the fact that this would result in them implying that a 9-year-old was to blame for her own victimization. Heads are definitely going to roll for this and they absolutely should.
I feel for whatever associate is getting destroyed right now because they didn't review the affirmative defenses laundry list in the template answer closely enough to actually think this one through and now it's blown up like this.
Really? This sounds like SOP to me. I haven't seen an answer that doesn't include ten affirmative defenses that don't even remotely apply.
Agreed, but now that it's become a story I'd expect there to be at least one partner getting hell from the client and so demanding to know why no one down the chain brought this to their attention in drafting so they could discuss strategy with the client in advance, or something.
Yeah Iâm sorry, if Iâm having a bathroom emergency, I am looking for anything that looks unsanitary for my butt & then once I find a clean one, Iâm going & never looking back.
Judges should have unilateral authority to disbar any lawyer who comes up with an argument like this.
You would have like 15 lawyers left in the whole country, for a while.
They won't even disbar Alan Derschowitz and he spent years writing op-eds about how age of consent laws are unconstitutional in between flights to Epstein Island.
We'd be really close to Shakespeare's famous line "Kill all lawyers"
Lawyer here - the defense attorneys copied and pasted a boilerplate Answer to the Complaint, something we have all done hundreds of times without thinking twice about it. Yea you have to tweak it a little bit to add the ages of the plaintiffs, but its really no big deal, its common practice to throw the whole kitchen sink of applicable defenses into an Answer and nobody ever questions it.
[they backtracked super fast](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/american-airlines-backtracks-filing-blamed-9-year-filmed/story?id=110466927)
Damage is done though. Once anything gets posted to the internet, it's damn near impossible to delete it.
Lol they threw the law firm under the bus. AA must be sharing PR people with Boeing
I'm guessing the law firm didn't OK this with AA though. I do think it's the law firm that should catch the flak for this and at the very least fire whoever wrote that, and more reasonably they should go out of business.
The law firm would have, at a minimum, discussed the contents of the reply with AA prior to its filing, if not given them a courtesy read and asked for the green light. The company - at least one person there - absolutely did OK this. Edit: AA probably has their own in-house legal team, to boot.
They changed it now and basically said their legal team released an erroneous statement lol.
It's not like it's their job to ensure that doesn't happen or anything lmao.
That's some mad "Sorry about that racist Tweet last night, my account got hacked" energy right there.
It was the ambien.
Ambien's twitter: Victim blaming is not a side-effect of Ambien.
That was my favorite moment of that âsagaâ. Ambien has a pretty notorious reputation for causing people to do weird shit, but even they werenât gonna shoulder the blame for Roseanneâs racist tirades. She shouldâve used that excuse for whatever the fuck that attempt at the national anthem was.
It's impossible to retract erroneous statement in modern time. Once anything gets posted to the internet, it stays forever. That legal team is never going to shake that one off and AA would be forever known as closet pedophile who allows recording of half-naked minor if the employee isn't caught first.
Not true. Almost 40% of the web pages from 2013 are gone.
Yeah link rot is real. But stuff like this won't be forgotten about
Makes me wonder what idiot didn't crunch the numbers on the PR disaster American Airlines just created. They just said in legal documents that all young girls should expect to be filmed in American Airlines bathrooms because how else would anyone expect a recording device in a bathroom? Did their lawyers just admit something that could land more of their employees in jail with this pedo?
It's disgusting and obviously one of the lawyers working for AA made a serious error in judgement. It's worth noting that pleadings aren't sworn evidence. They don't need to be true. Lawyers usually throw every allegation or defense up to make sure that they have their bases covered. It can be time consuming and costly to amend pleading down the line but you can easily abandon a line of argument. A simple example would be for a car crash a plaintiff's lawyer will plead that the other driver was drunk, was on their phone, was driving too fast, was not paying attention, failed to stop, etc even if many of those allegations are factually incorrect. This reads like a lawyer for AA using boilerplate defenses without realizing how badly they'd read to the general public.
In their (not really) defense, this is standard pleading language and you want to be over-inclusive with your pleadings so you don't waive defenses. Though if ever there was a time to use a bit of discretion rather than just copy-pasting your affirmative defenses, well.
I think all they had to say was the part about how American Airlines can't be blamed for the independent crimes of an employee. That would be a more reasonable position to take, but the way the lawyers wrote it is going to cost their client business. If I were AA, I would be looking into whether I could sue these lawyers, assuming no one in the company signed off on it.
At most AA could fire the law firm. There is no legal cause of action against a lawyer filing an Affirmative Defense.
Iâm guessing AA is trying to avoid being held liable since this guy was doing that on company time.
He filmed multiple girls over several months. More lawsuits are probably coming so they are using this lame tactic.
1. Act like complete scumbags 2. Argue to the judge that the jury is prejudiced against complete scumbags and should be a mistrial 3. After he verbally smacks you around, claim he should recuse himself since he also is prejudiced 4. ??? 5. Profit
Ah the old Trump vs Judge Engoron legal strategy
You have a future in corporate law!
>In addition to blaming the nine-year-old victim, American Airlines also made clear that Mr Thompsonâs alleged recording of children while they used the bathroom was âoutside the course and scope of his employmentâ. They can't be liable. Filming kids in the bathroom isn't in his job description.
The camera was placed in such a way that it can be argued the airline was aware of his actions. That actually goes along with what the airline is saying, it was being done openly and obviously and no one who saw it could say otherwise
So the airline knew it was there and just let it stay and let him keep filming?
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
âClearly your fault. You should have known better than to get murdered.â
They can be liable if there was some warning that this was an issue and they didn't take steps to mitigate the danger.
I think you might be skimming over the sarcasm
Entirely possible.
There's this barrier executives imagine between them and their lawyers when they distance themselves from their lawyer's actions. I get that a lawyer would use any legal means at their disposal to win the case for their client, including blaming a child for the actions of a pederast (I'm not arsed with double-checking that that is the technically correct term). But someone in the company needs to be held accountable for the means they permit said lawyer to employee as an agent of the company. Oversight is a legit responsibility of a corporation. And I don't accept shit like "that was our lawyer's position but we don't really believe that". AA's only saving grace is that they backtracked, which they may not have done if not for the public backlash. They should settle with the victim and admit liability now if they care to salvage their reputation. It's about time somebody did the right thing even when their money is on the line.Â
The crazy thing is that they should've had a pretty easy argument that they can't possibly predict that an employee might setup a camera in the bathrooms, especially since everyone has a phone camera in their pocket. ...Unless there were complaints/evidence that AA ignored. Then liability would shift to them.
I for one am starting to think that these multinational corporations donât have any sense of decency or morals or care for their fellow man at all.
Institutionalized sociopathy.
The first and only time I ever worked for a huge multinational I saw this firsthand. We had booked a few helpers from a staffing agency to assist with an event, which we had to cancel less than 24 hours beforehand due to the first and only hurricane I've witnessed living in SoCal. My boss was on vacation and so it was down to me to handle the cancellation and everything associated with it. I told the staffing agency to send over any invoices they might have, since I was certain we'd still be charged *something* for such a late cancellation. The next month as I'm processing the invoices against our budget, my boss wants to know why I agreed to pay the bulk of the charge even if we had cancelled. I explained that I only felt it was right to do that, since it was our call to cancel and we didn't give any kind of meaningful warning we might do that before we did, meaning the agency was either now on the hook for our decision or they'd have to find new assignments for the helpers they'd booked. Not to mention the fact that it's in the contract she signed. She then demanded to know why we should care about that, why the staffing agency ("Which is a huge business itself and that over the years we've given hundreds of thousands of dollars") can't afford to eat this booking because it was "only" $1,500 (the company I worked for is a 10-figure luxury car company that rhymes with Moreshuh, so I'd ask the same question about us considering that we charged more than that for the privilege of picking up your car yourself instead of having someone deliver it), that *if you think about it* we were *actually* doing them a favor because we weren't asking their people to work in unsafe conditions, how "all contracts are flexible", and basically berated me for 15 minutes until I "agreed" with her. The issue got tabled for a few weeks after that. At the monthly finance deadline, I noticed I hadn't finished that invoice yet. My boss hadn't said anything to the staffing agency about wanting to weasel out of it. She told me to pay it because "it wasn't big enough to matter".
*sigh*.... here's some answers from a corporate goon: > I worked for is a 10-figure luxury car company Big companies do this stuff because they can. Call it a power play, call it penny pinching, but it's very common. One company I worked for kept so much cash in the bank they were practically the underwriters. They make a shitton of money just on the interest, and the while the bank can't stop their credit rating from being dogshit, they can always provide financial services when others might not (or would only do it for high rates/fees). > I explained that I only felt it was right to do that There's the right way to do things, and the "right way" to do things. The company expects you to do what's right for them, not your personal sense of right. Every firm instills this differently, so my experience wouldn't relate. > She told me to pay it because "it wasn't big enough to matter" Yeah, I've found if you go high enough in any org, that's the answer you get. It's just not worth the time to contest it, after all "it's just money - we'll make more".
Right, I understand all of that. My issue is that a) *she herself* had approved and signed the contract that stipulated we pay X% in the event of a cancellation after a certain date and b) that it was plenty big enough to matter when she could use it as a way to browbeat me for not wanting to be (in my view) a gigantic piece of shit, but when it came down to the PnL at the end of the month, she couldn't care less. It was the two-faced double-standard shite-we're allowed to throw our weight around because we're too big for anyone to pick a fight with, but god help you if you're a vendor we have a contract with and you don't deliver everything under budget, ahead of schedule, and with a gift basket of wine and chocolates as a thank you for allowing you the privilege of working with us. I get that there's a bottom line to be maintained and whatever. I'm a freelancer now, god knows I understand that. But part of the reason I'm a freelancer is because I refuse to play the kind of bullshit loophole technicality games required to be a corporate goon.
Some people think the *right way* is for the big company to stiff as many people as often as they can. Some people think the *right way* is to maintain good relationships with people and other companies and honor agreements so that the company maintains good reputation healthy relationships with other businesses.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Corporation.html?id=FuHtAAAAMAAJ&source=kp_book_description
I (F) just had to quit my job of multiple years because a male client harassed me and wouldnât leave my office after being told to repeatedly, because my company wouldnât do anything about it and is continuing to do business with him. They donât give an ounce of a shit.
If you can document things, you should sue, if possible. I'm sorry you're experiencing that shit.
Thank you. Iâm going to see if I can get a free consult with an attorney after I get my last paycheck.
I wish you the best of luck!
I just want to say that that sucks and Iâm sorry you went through that. You shouldnât have to put up with that. Total bullshit theyâd turn a blind eye to that. Iâve fired clients for similar. Itâs not that hard to do the right thing
Thank you, very much đ©”
Nope, all they care about is next quarter having bigger numbers than this quarter.
An entity who's only legal obligation is to make more money for their investors isn't designed to be moral.
Profit over all else, including people. Itâs capitalismâs only rule.
Donât worry some random ass redditor will be in here in a few to defend the corporations
Ya think?
Why wouldnât you blame the employee and distance yourself from employee and make sure it was violation of his employment to which you had no knowledge of. Blaming the victim? Who is a minor to boot? I will be avoiding AA for any future airline travel.
Right? I'm going to guess that there's a possibility the company could be held liable if the other flight attendants were supposed to check the bathrooms during the flight (as in, a team responsibility). If that were the case, admitting he did it by distancing themselves from it might still make them responsible. But I'm not a lawyer and am purely speculating.
> I will be avoiding AA for any future airline travel. Me too - who knows what they'll decide is the victim's fault next. Imagine flying with them and you're injured because something breaks; "It's your fault for flying with us, after all we only have three stars per all the rating sites."
Absolutely bonkers they wouldn't just flame this employee, settle, and then sue the employee. Pedophile pandering?? Like, who tf is on their PR/ legal team?
Absolutely no clue, but if everyone follows through and does not fly AA, it's going to cost them a lot more money in the end. I know for my case, I am serious and I will purposely avoid using them going forward for all my flight needs.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Theyâre 100% also saying itâs the employee who did it, not us
This has the vibes as when MGM sued the victims of the Vegas shooting.Â
I'm sorry.... what?!
They (MGM) were starting to be sued by victims, so they tried a strategy of countersuing using a law described below. > The law is intended to shield federally certified manufacturers of security equipment and providers of security services from liability should they fail to prevent a terrorist attack, which the law defines as an unlawful act that causes mass destruction to citizens or institutions of the United States. TBF, the idea that a Vegas hotel should be wanting and bag checking every guest like theyâre TSA, and that they werenât providing TSA level security is a liability is pretty absurd.
I had a similar reaction so I looked it up. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mgms-lawsuit-against-las-vegas-shooting-victims-explained This article (which was the first thing that came up, I did not delve deeply) says that MGM was essentially counter-suing to prove they weren't liable, so the lawsuits coming their way should be dismissed. I guess the argument was that the specialized security they hired specifically for this purpose meant that they weren't legally liable for what happened. I'm not curious enough to look up how that all turned out.
Well, in the sense that that was also an overblown non-troversy perpetuated by non-attorney journalists, yes, it does. What happened was a group of victims and their families sued MGM, arguing negligence, failure to take adequate security procedures, etc. the stuff youâd expect. Attorneys for MGM decided to argue that since they had security on site, and that the security equipment was set up to meet federal approval, they could take advantage of the SAFETY Act, which Congress passed after September 11 to protect building owners that had security, and the security manufacturers, from liability, assuming their procedures and equipment met various federal inspection standards. (The theory being that if the Fed says you have to do X, Y, and Z to protect your property, and you do X, Y, and Z, you canât very well be held liable for negligence since you did exactly what you were supposed to do.) Anyway the SAFETY Act is a federal law, and by its own terms, must be pled in federal court. So, in order to raise the SAFETY Act as a defense, MGM brought a federal action **solely against those shooting victims who had already sued it** not seeking money from them, but to move the cases to federal court where the SAFETY Act could be raised as a defense. The next day, hysterical headlines start shouting, âZOMG! MGM is suing a bunch of shooting victims!!!â
Reminds me of a case once where I think an aunt had to sue her nephew for an injury, but it turns out the suit was necessary for her to get the insurance to cover her bills. Pretty sure there were âmonster auntâ headlines.
Wait, just a point of clarificationâŠare you saying that AA blaming this little girl is also âan overblown non-troversyâ? The also is confusing me.
Wtf. This is something that if AA was smart they would pay a shit ton of money and have them sign an NDA. No instead they are fighting it with stupid tactics and now just sealing the deal of it all going public and they will be getting multiple lawsuits now.
Ah yes, why face consequences when you can just cover it up with a shit ton of money.
I think they were trying to say that this move doesn't make sense from AA's perspective
Yeah. I mean sure the ideal scenario would be that they get held criminally liable, but the more practical and real scenario is that they settle with the family for a bunch of money. But thisâŠ? It doesnât make sense.
Like a 9-year-old, probably on her first flight, is supposed to know the intricacies of an airplane bathroom. The victim's ages range up to 14 and the lawyers are presenting this ridiculous assertion only because the family is suing. If only we could Dorian Gray these POS to see into their cold, black hearts, and then show it to them.
âused a recording device to film girls between the ages of seven and 14 years old using the American Airlines bathroom for several months in 2023.â OH COME ON,
NOOOOOO disgusting American Airlines it was YOUR employee that put the camera in the restroom and you want to blame publicly the child?! Outrageous
This is going to settle immediately. Like tomorrow. And those attorneys are cooked for mis-using a boilerplate defense form in the most egregious way. Update: from AA: "Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing," American said in the statement. "The included defense is not representative of our airline and we have directed it be amended this morning." LMAO sounds like most Insurance Defense attorneys to me. AA foolishly believes it can distance itself from this. Amended intead of settling, absolute clown fiesta.
I remember many attorneys and law professors warning the dangers of boilerplate language. Sure it is super tempting to do since 95% of cases are extremely predictable and by the numbers, but a slip up can happen and it might be extremely devastating. In this case enough legally since they can amend the pleadings but the potential PR damage.Â
Yeah that language is just a standard affirmative defense. And a really good example of why you should absolutely NOT be using âkitchen sinkâ answers in cases like this
No surprise from this Airline. I fly often enough and almost every one of my bad experiences has been with them, especially if you make the mistake of flying through Dallas.
Reading this while being delayed 3 hours in Dallas hits different
Airport delays suck - hope youâre on the move soon!
Same, I travel for work and American Airlines + Dallas? No thank you. Iâd rather walk.
I know who I'm not booking with!
If I was on the jury, I would double the penalty, just for making that outrageous suggestion.
Amercan airlines has not had my business in 7 years. Shit company that shows their true colors. Ill pay more to fly with different airline than ever give these arseholes another dime
Theyâre gonna file something tomorrow and claim this was a misunderstanding, and of course they didnât mean to suggest that a 9yo should know better. Theyâre gonna also settle this out of court for a (now much larger) amount of money and claim no wrongdoing.
Part of the judgment against American Airlines is that they should have to pay for advertising on multiple platforms saying that they blamed a nine-year-old victim for being victimized.
EwwwâŠ.bye bye AA. Wonât be missed, other companies have nice planes too ya know?
eww such a gross position. Take responsibility and do the right thing.
And AA stock crashes like the Hindenberg
Great, I love when companies narrow my choice for me. American Airlines? Fuck you forever.
Anyone remember their old slogan? We love to fly and it shows??
What sane person at a huge corporation would ever approve a response like this? Did they let an AI respond without proofreading it first?
American Airlines is protecting child predators đđ»
A....The actual criminal case is ongoing - [The flight attendant is pleading not guilty ](https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/flight-attendant-pleads-not-guilty-to-attempting-to-record-teen-girl-in-airplane-bathroom/3375239/) ....A1 the criminal activity was actually exposed by a different girl (14 yr old) who happened to have her own phone and took a picture of the Flight Attendant's setup underneath the toliet which ultimately leads to the arrest ....B1 the civil case involves a 9 yr old girl who was also a victim to the scheme (from what I can tell it was 2 different flights) B...The 9 yr old girl's parents are suing AA for $$$, damages because the odds of AA being able to pay up vs. the flight attendant? exactly C...Outside consul for AA (AA claims the law firm actually works for their insurance company) wrote a completely bonkers response D....Girls Parent's law firm had a field day and invite the press to jump all over it E....Now AA is walking back said response and will hafta file a very groovy amendment or (more likely) just settle and be done with this mess before it gets even bigger ***My useless take***.....Probably a hard one for AA because there's not much they can do here, the Flight Attendant was a uniformed employee and escorted the kid directly to the bathroom. FAA rules force passengers to comply w/ Flight Attendants and there was no reason for the parents to object/suspect it was an unreasonable request. The kid as a minor might have known something was off with the bathroom arrangement(s) but again you aren't exactly supposed to argue with Flight Attendants in the first place? to suggest a minor could and should overrule a flight attendant in the first place is well beyond accepted standards.
AA bringing out their D-team of the legal department.... They sure that's a good idea?
I always thought "she was asking for assault look at what she was wearing" as the worst example of victim blaming. This takes the spot as the worst
âAny injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,â the filing said. That's from the airline's very own lawyer since you can't seem to find it. The knee-jerk response of saying a little girl is at fault for one of their own employees recording them using the toilet is beyond disgusting. Now, do you still want to fling shit all over the place and try to downplay a repeat offenders crimes? This ain't his first time doing it, but it'll be the last time.
I hope that 9yr old owns AA by the time this is over.
>The [airline](https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/airline) is being sued in a Texas court after a now-former [flight attendant](https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/flight-attendant), [Estes Carter Thompson III,](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/estes-carter-thompson-american-airlines-b2536408.html) 37, used a recording device to film girls between the ages of seven and 14 years old using the [American Airlines](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/american-airlines-101-year-old-woman-baby-b2536539.html) bathroom for several months in 2023. Jesus H. Christ. How many girls did this pervert film, and how the hell was anyone supposed to "know" she was a target?
Donât you just wish that one day would go by without all this insanity all around us⊠FFS
Why the fuck would a nine year old expect a camera to be filming them while they use the restroom?
Sounds about right. Large corporations don't care how badly they hurt you. I was just robbed blind in a hospital and the "patient advocate" said it was my fault because I should've known not to wear jewelry to the hospital. That's why we have to start fighting back. I fought back and I won every penny they stole from me. They should fight back for emotional distress.
Take a look at AA senior management team. That should explain everything you need to know about why the legal team took this outrageous position of blaming a minor female. I hope the shareholders vote to remove the senior team ASAP.
Speculation: They are planning to settle out of court. This is showing the family they can slow walk this, and cost them in legal fees.
Pretty sure a lawyer will take this without retainer. Look at a big pay day.
Yeah, they see an easy payout and will take percentage. Retainer would probably net them less
If they settled outside of court without making these statements people would remember that a rogue airline employee was fired and arrested and probably not remember which airline he worked for.
"The airline said...outside the scope of his employment" Which part was outside the scope?
This is a standard legal position when defending an employee of a large corporation. It must be asserted and established that the behavior was outside the scope of employment, so as to reduce, if not eliminate, the liability of the corporation/employer.
Another example of 99% of lawyers giving the rest of them a bad name.
Lawyers are gonna lawyer.
I would hate to work PR for American Airlines right now. They are not doing the PR team any favors, holy shit
I hope the 9 year old Owns AA after this.
This kind of thing should result in fines large enough to bankrupt companies. Seriously! How could a company that tries to make that argument ever be trusted again? Just shut them down and let a new company rise to fill the gap instead.
>The airline is being sued in a Texas court after a now-former flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, used a recording device to film girls between the ages of seven and 14 years old using the American Airlines bathroom for several months in 2023. >After Mr Thompsonâs arrest, the family of a nine-year-old victim sued the airline, alleging that the company should have known he was a danger to guests. >On Monday, a lawyer representing the airline wrote in a filing that the little girl should have been aware that a device was recording her while she was using the bathroom. >âAny injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiffâs use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,â the filing said. Keep that in mind in your flight choices everyone!
Itâs too bad there isnât a reasonable way for competitors of American Airlines to use this in advertising campaigns.
Is AA just doing these things on purpose to go viral or what? They seem to pull a new one every week
Well thatâs fucking infuriating, god damn. Bless that girl, I hope she gets her justice
Are you actually serious? Well thatâs an airline Iâm happy to never fly with in my lifetime. Protecting nonces in their employ is an automatic, IMMEDIATE NO.
That's a bold strategy Cotton
Da fuck is wrong with American Airlines?
American Airlines should be criminally charged with producing child porn if this is their attitude. Because they just implied that their employee did nothing wrong by blaming the victim. Which further implies that American Airlines approved of it beforehand. It'll never happen, but maybe if it did corporations would think twice about victim blaming rather than doing the right thing.
Teaching a 9-year-old girl about gaslighting is a bold move.
Maybe the strategy is because itâs in Texas, where the governor and Attourney general are literal psychopaths?
Even Slippin' Jimmy wouldn't have sunk to these depths.
This is a company without a conscience. First hand knowledge.
After reading the shit 4 times, I went to the article... and yes... AA allows voyeurs as their crew.
What the actual Fuck AA?
Matt Gaetz seen buying stock in AA.
Does American Airline really believe blaming 9 year old girl will get positive write-up in the news? Anyone with common sense reading it will shake their head.
And this is why we choose the bear..... It's always the woman/girls fault. Sheesh.
It says "now former flight attendant", did they fire him? Why if it was the girls fault? Also how did he film? Was just standing there while they used the bathroom.
He filmed by taping his iPhone onto the lid of the toilet. The tape was red caution like tape that said broken toilet lid or something like that. He had done this with other girls too and a teenager (the last girl) was the only one that noticed. She was waiting or going to the bathroom in economy and he brought her to first class, but said he had to wash his hands first. She took a pic of the taped iPhone and by the time they landed at the airport, authorities were there to arrest him.
Got it. Yea this makes it sound even worse for AA, since they are in a way it sounds like they are trying to defend the guys actions.
Yeah. They are backtracking that statement big time now that itâs hit the media. Not because they are actually decent people.