Man Sues Airline For Being Seated Next To Obese Man

nbc7 ^

[chance33_98]

Man Sues Airline For Being Seated Next To Obese Man
Delta Spokesman Calls Man's Lawsuit Trivial

UPDATED: 12:27 p.m. EDT August 1, 2002

ASHLAND, Ohio -- An Ashland man is suing Delta Airlines because he was seated next to an obese man during a two-hour flight last November.

Philip Shafer said that Delta breached its contract to provide him with a full seat and reasonable comfort. Shafer claims he suffered embarrassment, severe discomfort, mental anguish and severe emotional distress from the flight.

"I think these large people have a responsibility to take control, either to get two seats, or talk to the airline," Shafer said. "The airline has a responsibility to take care of this problem. The last person who should be worried is the innocent passenger."

An attorney for Delta called the suit trivial and said that it is not a legitimate issue. The case is set to go to court in mid-September.

[amused]

I'd rather lash myself to the wing with bungee cords than to be seated in front of the dreaded "seat kickers" (usually 6-11 year old boys). These little hellspawn should have been drowned at birth.

LOL...That reminds me of Flintstone's episode where Barney and Betty flew last class. They were lashed to the wings!!!

[murdoog]

If you think the restaurant analogy is silly why did you use the restaurant analogy?

[HELLRAISER II]

I realize that the almighty dollar is what it's all about, I just wish that it didn't cost me more money than the B@stards are all ready making off of me.

[flyervet]

Risks aside, if this case is decided for the plantiff, it will actually open the door to even more lawsuits.

Philip Shafer said that Delta breached its contract to provide him with a full seat and reasonable comfort. Shafer claims he suffered embarrassment, severe discomfort, mental anguish and severe emotional distress from the flight.

Don't airlines have to provide fat people with a "full seat" and "reasonable comfort"? If the court decides that Delta owes its passengers "full seats" and "reasonable comfort" to this particular passenger, it could very well lead to not only a costly class-action lawsuit and damage award, but it could also lead to Delta being ordered to re-engineer their seats for "reasonable comfort", leading not only to the cost of reconfigurement but also the loss of revenue as the "reasonable comfort" was lost in the first place by trying to shoe-horn as many passengers as possible into their planes.

[MotleyGirl70]

Apparently, his big butt seat mate was not aware of this new airline.

You mean this airline?

[cinFLA]

Judges should throw these cases out immediately, and submit the names of the attorneys bringing these B$ claims to the respective state's bar disciplinary board.

Don't you believe in getting what you paid for? How about McDonald's giving part of your hamburger and fries to the heavier people?

[flyervet]

Here you've hit the nail on the head: the current miserable state of affairs in airline seating is the fault of the airlines themselves, not the passengers.

[Texas Mom]

Depends on when you travel, and to/from locations.

Probably, and then I usually check the loads before I make plans to travel. I also travel early AM or weekends. I had a miserable flight from Atlanta to Houston because if being squeezed into a seat next to a blimp but it was just a two hour trip and she was pleasent enough.. (I sat on her lap and we chatted the whole way..Not really) I had the window seat...

The absolutly miserable flight I did take was 6 years ago when we flew from JFK to TelAviv and they had added seats I am sure. There was absolutly no leg room and reclining was impossible..

People have asked me if I would ever go back to Israel and I would if it didn't mean 10 hours on the plane. I got there and my legs were swollen. The same size from top to bottom. They stayed that way for 24 hours. The trip back was almost as bad but had a young woman and her baby across the isle and I helped her with the baby the whole way. It helped kill time and the flight didn't seem as long.

[ArrogantBustard]

Larger seats higher prices less customers etc etc

I'm beginning to wonder if some people (not you) are really aware that the cabin of an airliner is a fixed width. Each passenger takes up a portion of that width. If you pay "economy class" fare, you get some fraction of that width. If you pay "business class" fare or "first class" fare, you get a larger portion of that width. However, the fare is higher. Any passenger larger than the space he has paid for is taking space from somebody else. Boeing has really nice pages showing plan and section views of all of their airliners in various configurations. I'd strongly encourage people to have a look at those pages, and get a handle on the objective facts of the situation.

AB

[Black Agnes]

My bad...buffet analogy. I was trying to stay in genre.

[HELLRAISER II]

Pachyderm? Gorilla maybe, but elephant I'm not.

[Vinomori]

I think this will help fat people realize that they have had a little too much to eat.

[Freebird Forever]

Judges should throw these cases out immediately, and submit the names of the attorneys bringing these B$ claims to the respective state's bar disciplinary board.

Don't you believe in getting what you paid for? How about McDonald's giving part of your hamburger and fries to the heavier people?

From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.
(It's the Democratic way)

[discostu]

Well the idea is (I think) that he paid for a full seat and because of who they put him next to he didn't get it, and therefore he missed out on the reasonable comfort a full seat can provide him. Large people who have only paid for one full seat are only entitled to the level of reasonable comfort one full seat can provide them, if that's not very comfortable that's not the airlines problem. It's all about the commas. "a full seat and reasonable comfort" is very different than "a full seat, and reasonable comfort". It's the difference between 1 concept with multiple aspects and two seperate concepts. Your interpretation is that later.

IMHO this is the real reason people hate lawyers, because they don't actually speak English. Their langauge resembles English quite substantially, but it clearly is not.

[Hawkeye's Girl]

Don't you just love how these threads always degenerate into fat people bashing?

Stick to the issue at hand, people!

[TC Rider]

How about we force the airlines to seat all of the chubbies next to each other. heh heh

Or better yet, alternate seating between the chubbies and the skinny little vegans in their Birkenstock sandles.

Though I wouldn't want to be nearby when the dinner cart comes.

[BibChr]

GAHHH!

You're KILLING me!

Dan

[metalurgist]

I heard this man on KDKA radio this morning. The over weight man lifted the arm rest so that he could sit down. the air attendant had to get the person a seat belt extender so that he could be belted in and meet the seat belt on take off rule. This guy was so big he took up half of the other seat. There were three empty seats on the plane and at the last minute they were sold to stand by flyers.

When the man got home he wrote a letter to the airline, told them what happened and asked for an appology and a voucher for a future flight. The airline's answer was "That's too bad, nothing we can do about it, kiss off"

The $9500 the law suit asks for is the lowest thresh hold you can ask for in order to get a suit of this type heard in a court in Ohio.

[HairOfTheDog]

Did you fall for it? Did I getcha?

[HELLRAISER II]

Isn't that the truth, some of these people their talking about & making fun of are people that are big not fat. It's amazing how brave they are on the computer, but they see things entirely different when they see that same person in person that their making fun of are capable of ripping off their appendages to make that extra room.