  The case of the airline that mistook a dog for a bagby Steven M. Wise
One day in June, 1988, Floyd ambled into a Phoenix campsite being shared among three friends and adopted Andrew Gluckman. Floyd was a Golden Retriever, perhaps two and a half years old. Andrew had just finished high school in New York. In celebration, his parents had presented him with a round-trip ticket on American Airlines to Phoenix.
The camping trip was over, Andrew had no intention of leaving Floyd. Having never purchased an airline ticket for himself, much less a dog, on June 23, he telephoned an American agent and asked if he could bring Floyd home in the passenger cabin. The agent demurred. Floyd would have to fly in the baggage compartment in a crate that Andrew could buy for $80.85. Floyd's ticket would cost another $30. But it was the information that Andrew said that the agent never gave him that proved fatal to Floyd.
Andrew said that the agent never told him that the cargo hold in which Floyd would have to fly was neither air-conditioned nor ventilated, that conditions in the hold could not be monitored from the cockpit, that the crew could not control the temperature of the cargo hold, and that 85 degrees was the maximum outdoor temperature under which Floyd could legally fly if a ground wait was expected to exceed 45 minutes.
The next day Andrew's plane taxied through 115 degree heat onto the Phoenix runway in preparation for final clearance to New York. Then mechanical problems struck and forced it back to the gate. Forty-five minutes passed, then an hour. The temperature in the cargo hold slowly climbed to 140 degrees. Floyd began to fight for his life, ever more frantically tearing and pawing at his crate until it was everywhere smeared with his blood. Finally, he collapsed from a heat stroke that seized his brain. Andrew decided to take another flight. He left the plane and called for Floyd. One look inside the crate and he cried for help. After a long terrible night at Floyd's side in the intensive care unit, Andrew realized that he would have to let Floyd go.
Andrew sued American in a federal court in New York for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, for the loss of Floyd's companionship, for the pain and suffering that Floyd had endured, and for American's breach of contract in failing to return Floyd in the same health in which Andrew had delivered him. American, he claimed, had also violated a previous order requiring a training videotape, "Not Just Another Bag," be shown to all employees who handled nonhuman animals.
American conceded its negligence. But Floyd, in the end, was just another bag. American demanded that the court enter a summary judgment, before trial, in its favor and impose its standard maximum liability limit of $1,250 for destroyed baggage upon any count that survived. American received nearly everything it demanded. Andrew's claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress was thrown out because New York law did not permit recovery for the emotional distress a passenger suffers for the loss of his suitcase, which Floyd equaled. New York law did not allow damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress unless outrageous behavior was directed towards Andrew Gluckman, and not Floyd, and that had not occurred. Loss of companionship of a dead dog and Floyd's own pain and suffering were not even recognized categories of legal wrongs.
The only surviving count was Andrew's claim for breach of contract. Here American pressed its argument that his damages should be limited to $1,250. All the airline had to do was convince the judge that it had afforded Andrew reasonable notice of this limit. But here it finally failed. That issue would go to a jury.
Motion for summary judgment allowed on all counts but the last.
copyright 1998 by Steven M. Wise
|
