Woman Sues Airline for Serving Peanuts

A Long Island woman has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines claiming the carrier endangered her 4-year-old son by serving peanuts on her flight, Newsday reported.

Tehmina Haque says she was assured several times that peanuts would not be served, but flight attendants changed the plan without notice during her April 18 flight to Los Angeles.

Her lawsuit claims she was “tense and fearful .. that her son would have an anaphylactic reaction while imprisoned 35,000 feet in the air,” according to Newsday.

“American recognizes that some passengers are allergic to peanuts. Although we do not serve peanuts, we do serve other nut products and there may be trace elements of unspecified peanut ingredients, including peanut oils, in meal and snacks. We make no provisions to be peanut-free.

"Additionally, other customers may bring peanuts on board. Therefore, we cannot guarantee customers will not be exposed to peanuts during flight and strongly encourage customers to take all necessary medical precautions to prepare for the possibility of exposure.”

Thanks. There is no way for Gubmint to protect her from every Pakistani street merchant roasting chestnuts and peanuts on the streets of NY or any other city. (if King Bloomberg was as committed to ridding NYC of peanut vendors as he was of ridding the city of smokers, he could probably do it. Just threaten the councilmen that he would support their opponent with his billions in the upcoming election)

I was a at a comedy club a few months ago for a friends’ engagement party. The “comedian” had a joke that was similar in nature to yours. “If a bite of a Snickers bar is enough to kill you, than you should do the world a favor and take yourself out of the gene pool.”

I looked at my wife, waiting for her to charge the stage with her steak knife. She laughed it off. And she is more hysterical about this than I am.

The problem is that people have seen silliness before, so when there is a real medical issue, they just laugh it off...

We've been told that a whiff of second hand smoke will instantly kill

We've been told that if you don't wipe your ass with 2 sheets of toilet paper instead of wrapping it around your hand or if you don't trade in your Hummer H2 for a hybrid the world will blow up in a great big ball of fire.

I can't blame people for not believing the peanut allergy danger.

They've been lied to before. Why should they believe it?

It is absolutely unreasonable to expect the entire world to cater to your special needs. Period.

Agreed. But if someone promises to cater to your special needs, I don't think it is unreasonable to hold them to that promise.

I think that is a better description of what happened here (assuming the mother is telling the truth). She wasn't expecting American to change their policy for her. She was only expecting American to follow their policy and their repeated assurances to her.

The American Airlines disclaimer also states that while they do not serve peanuts, they cannot and will not guarantee a peanut-free environment. And you know why? Because they can't, and every reasonable person on the planet understands that.

Of course. But American does say their own flight attendants will not serve peanuts. The mother in this story may have been comfortable with the risk posed from passengers eating their own peanuts, but not comfortable with the risk posed from having flight attendants walking up and down the plane offering peanuts to every passenger.

It's the mother's responsibility to take reasonable steps to avoid any risks that she doesn't find acceptable. If her story is true, then I think she did just that. It is reasonable to expect that an airline will honor its written policy and their assurances that peanuts won't be distributed during flights.

They've been lied to before. Why should they believe it?

I guess if they've never personally known someone who was impacted by such an allergy (or something similar), they could be skeptical. But that's no excuse for being nasty about it to those who have known or experienced it. (Not saying you are.)

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