American Airlines' Preaching Pilot

In alt.religion.christian I read this message from "PTRAVEL"
:


"Wai Doan Hsu" wrote in message
. com...
"PTRAVEL" wrote in message
...
"Wai Doan Hsu" wrote in message
m...
"None" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"PTRAVEL" wrote in message
. com...

I take it back. There very well may be grounds for a law suit,
specifically
negligent and/or intentional infliction of emotional distress.

This guy is a nut bag! If AA doesn't fire him, and PUBLICLY, then
I
think
a
letter is in order from everyone who, like me, refuses to fly with
pilots
so
lacking in judgment that they can do this.

Right now the bean counters at AMR are weighing the pros and cons of
the
"christian" business they'll loose if they fire his ass, and the
rest of
the
traveling public's business lost if they don't.


It has nothing to do with the Christian business. If they fire him
for breaking a rule, Christians should understand. Nobody is telling
him that he can't be Christian, and other airlines would do the same.
However, AA would not disclose firing him because it would violate
their rules on employee privacy. If he makes it public, they would
probably refuse comment, but insist it was not based on his religion.

I've never heard of a company whose privacy rules prohibit disclosing
the
fact of an employee's termination. What makes you think AA has such
rules?


Only the myriad articles that have been written on this specific case
that quote AA as saying so. AA explicitly said that they would not
comment on disciplinary actions or terminations because it violates
their policy.

And there policy, almost certainly, has nothing to do with privacy and
everything to do with minimizing costs associated with defending frivolous
litigation.

First off, why frivolous? Certainly the can do such things to
avoid real cause litigation as well. Second, you are paying too
much attention to the privacy issue. I don't think that companies
have privacy interests per se (unlike humans), but they do care
about their privacy for other reasons. A company privacy policy
can prevent the company from talking about any HR issue and could
exist, in part, to protect them from suits. (One could argue that
companies have fire extinguishers for the same reason.) The
policy also protects the privacy of the employee.


I really wish that people would take the time to read the press on
this. If you can read threads that are hundreds of articles long, you
can at least read a few newspaper articles to find out what verified
sources have said.

I've read them. You're imputing to AA a rationale that hasn't been
articulated.



--
Matt Silberstein

I want to be different, I just don't want to change.

Wai Doan Hsu wrote:
(Miguel Cruz) wrote:
Wai Doan Hsu wrote:
Yes it does. Companies are directly responsible for the actions of their
employees and for the consequences of those actions toward their
customers. If the customer had a reasonable expectation based on published
policy and the airline did not meet that expectation, the customer has
every right to sue.

The customer has to be able to show harm. A surprise is not harm.

What if every airplane you'd ever been on had green carpeting, and one day
you board one and discover it has red carpet? Surely you could have
reasonably expected green carpeting. Can you therefore sue?

No, that's not a reasonable assumption. If I had firsthand knowledge
that the airline had a policy against green carpeting, and if green
carpeting were known to be inherently offensive to passengers, and if
green carpeting were known to cause panic, then I might be willing to
discuss your analogy. If, instead of a history of religious zealots
taking over cockpits, launching into religious diatribes, and crashing
their planes, we instead had a history of people installing green
carpeting and then crashing planes, I might also be willing to discuss
your analogy.

The analogy is a response to your claim that the person had a grounds for
suit based on the fact that "the customer had a reasonable expectation based
on published policy and the airline did not meet that expectation." The
analogy is easily tuned in response to your only salient point by adding a
corporate policy on carpet color.

Tangents about religious zealots and plane crashes are irrelevant to your
claim as stated, so if you want to add them now, you should retract your
earlier statement and start again from the top.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

BTC/TAK on ACK wrote:
Considering this is a legal discussion, revolving around the validity of
the passengers' ability to successfully sue the airline, it's obvious
that *you* are the one who is missing the point.

Actually, this did not start as "a legal discussion, revolving around the
validity of the passengers' ability to successfully sue the airline".
Around the 12th message to the thread the post included [though it didn't
really appear to be the main focus of the message]; "...I'd file a lawsuit
against American...". The 14th post was yours, and it the [perhaps] became
a "legal discussion" for you and a few others, That is quite different
from saying this "is a legal discussion". So "who is missing the point" I
wonder? I read the message you replied to above as saying you were missing
some points... but put more politely than your reply.

Have a legal sub-discussion with whomever you wish... but please keep in
mind it does not appear to have been the intent of the originator of the
thread, or of primary interest to all who are following it.

I think you'd have an easier time following if you used a threaded
newsreader. The subthread on lawsuits branched off with message
and has continued to cover
solely this topic for dozens of messages.

It sounds to me like you're using a primitive newsreader (Google or Outlook
Express or something) that lists messages in subject and date order, which
makes it near-impossible to accurately follow the discussion in a large
thread with many divergent subthreads.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

me wrote:
(Miguel Cruz) wrote:
Wai Doan Hsu wrote:
Whose plane it is has nothing to do with it either. There is an
agreement to transport passengers in accordance with certain rules.

I haven't seen anyone credibly claim that the rules prohibit discussing
religion.

There is consideration. (i.e. money paid by the passenger.) So the
passenger certainly has grounds to sue.

If my plumber asks me whether I'm a Christian, can I sue?

Is there a federal law that says you must follow and obey
all instructions from your plumbing crew? If not, it might be
a different situation altogether.

Best point I've seen in a while.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

Wai Doan Hsu wrote:
(Miguel Cruz) wrote:
Wai Doan Hsu wrote:
Whose plane it is has nothing to do with it either. There is an
agreement to transport passengers in accordance with certain rules.

I haven't seen anyone credibly claim that the rules prohibit discussing
religion.

Then you haven't been paying attention. Many newspaper articles made
it clear that his behavior violated the airline's rules.

You said "There is an agreement to transport passengers in accordance with
certain rules."

I repeat, I haven't seen anyone credibly claim that the rules prohibit
discussing religion.

The airline representative quoted in the papers did not say that the pilot's
behavior violated the contract of carriage between airline and passenger.

If it violated the rules of the contract between airline and pilot, then the
airline has grounds to take action against the pilot. Not the passengers (at
least not for that reason).

There is consideration. (i.e. money paid by the passenger.) So the
passenger certainly has grounds to sue.

If my plumber asks me whether I'm a Christian, can I sue?


What does that have to do with anything?

You said (I keep having to remind you what you said) that the passenger has
grounds to sue the airline because they paid the airline money. I pay my
plumber money. If you don't intend to make cause-and-effect statements, then
you should stop using words like "so" and "because".

If my cat flies an airplane into North Korea, do I get free cheese?

I'm not sure, but that's the most coherent thing I've seen from you so far
in this thread.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

None wrote:
"mrtravelkay" wrote:
Wai Doan Hsu wrote:
It does not have to offend every single passenger on the plane to rise
to that level. We are not talking about a case where a single
passenger was offended, as was the case with the Southwest "eenie
meenie" case. We're talking about a case where many passengers were
offended, alarmed, or panicked.

What were the results of the "eenie meenie" case?

Tossed out, Southwest awarded fees and costs.

For those who, like myself, wondered what the ennie meenie case was, see
he

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,78139,00.html

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

gardibolt wrote:
I am in any event calling American to tell them that even though they
were previously my airline of choice I will NEVER fly them again
because I don't want to be subjected to such incredibly rude
treatment.

It seems as if they're laying the groundwork for firing the guy. Wouldn't
that be all you could hope for? It's not as if (based on the information we
have available) they knew, or could have predicted, this would happen.

Seems like the more effective statement would be to say you're not going to
fly them unless they fire the guy.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

"Matt Silberstein" matts2nopam@ix netcom.nospamcom wrote in message
...
In alt.religion.christian I read this message from "PTRAVEL"
:


"Wai Doan Hsu" wrote in message
. com...
"PTRAVEL" wrote in message
...
"Wai Doan Hsu" wrote in message
m...
"None" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"PTRAVEL" wrote in message
. com...

I take it back. There very well may be grounds for a law suit,
specifically
negligent and/or intentional infliction of emotional distress.

This guy is a nut bag! If AA doesn't fire him, and PUBLICLY,
then
I
think
a
letter is in order from everyone who, like me, refuses to fly
with
pilots
so
lacking in judgment that they can do this.

Right now the bean counters at AMR are weighing the pros and cons
of
the
"christian" business they'll loose if they fire his ass, and the
rest of
the
traveling public's business lost if they don't.


It has nothing to do with the Christian business. If they fire him
for breaking a rule, Christians should understand. Nobody is
telling
him that he can't be Christian, and other airlines would do the
same.
However, AA would not disclose firing him because it would violate
their rules on employee privacy. If he makes it public, they would
probably refuse comment, but insist it was not based on his
religion.

I've never heard of a company whose privacy rules prohibit disclosing
the
fact of an employee's termination. What makes you think AA has such
rules?


Only the myriad articles that have been written on this specific case
that quote AA as saying so. AA explicitly said that they would not
comment on disciplinary actions or terminations because it violates
their policy.

And there policy, almost certainly, has nothing to do with privacy and
everything to do with minimizing costs associated with defending
frivolous
litigation.

First off, why frivolous? Certainly the can do such things to
avoid real cause litigation as well.

Because, in most jurisdictions, employment is at will, meaning the employer
can fire you for any non-prohibited reason (religion, race, etc. being
prohibited reasons).

Second, you are paying too
much attention to the privacy issue.

I'm not paying any attention to the privacy issue. There is no privacy issue
implicated at all.

I don't think that companies
have privacy interests per se (unlike humans), but they do care
about their privacy for other reasons. A company privacy policy
can prevent the company from talking about any HR issue and could
exist, in part, to protect them from suits.

But the suit would be for wrongful termination, not for any privacy
interest.

(One could argue that
companies have fire extinguishers for the same reason.) The
policy also protects the privacy of the employee.


I really wish that people would take the time to read the press on
this. If you can read threads that are hundreds of articles long, you
can at least read a few newspaper articles to find out what verified
sources have said.

I've read them. You're imputing to AA a rationale that hasn't been
articulated.



--
Matt Silberstein

I want to be different, I just don't want to change.

In alt.religion.christian I read this message from "PTRAVEL"
:


"Matt Silberstein" matts2nopam@ix netcom.nospamcom wrote in message
.. .
In alt.religion.christian I read this message from "PTRAVEL"
:


"Wai Doan Hsu" wrote in message
. com...
"PTRAVEL" wrote in message
...
"Wai Doan Hsu" wrote in message
m...
"None" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"PTRAVEL" wrote in message
. com...

I take it back. There very well may be grounds for a law suit,
specifically
negligent and/or intentional infliction of emotional distress.

This guy is a nut bag! If AA doesn't fire him, and PUBLICLY,
then
I
think
a
letter is in order from everyone who, like me, refuses to fly
with
pilots
so
lacking in judgment that they can do this.

Right now the bean counters at AMR are weighing the pros and cons
of
the
"christian" business they'll loose if they fire his ass, and the
rest of
the
traveling public's business lost if they don't.


It has nothing to do with the Christian business. If they fire him
for breaking a rule, Christians should understand. Nobody is
telling
him that he can't be Christian, and other airlines would do the
same.
However, AA would not disclose firing him because it would violate
their rules on employee privacy. If he makes it public, they would
probably refuse comment, but insist it was not based on his
religion.

I've never heard of a company whose privacy rules prohibit disclosing
the
fact of an employee's termination. What makes you think AA has such
rules?


Only the myriad articles that have been written on this specific case
that quote AA as saying so. AA explicitly said that they would not
comment on disciplinary actions or terminations because it violates
their policy.

And there policy, almost certainly, has nothing to do with privacy and
everything to do with minimizing costs associated with defending
frivolous
litigation.

First off, why frivolous? Certainly the can do such things to
avoid real cause litigation as well.

Because, in most jurisdictions, employment is at will, meaning the employer
can fire you for any non-prohibited reason (religion, race, etc. being
prohibited reasons).

Which does not mean that companies don't fire for inappropriate
reasons and then pay money to avoid lawsuits.

Second, you are paying too
much attention to the privacy issue.

I'm not paying any attention to the privacy issue. There is no privacy issue
implicated at all.

I don't think that companies
have privacy interests per se (unlike humans), but they do care
about their privacy for other reasons. A company privacy policy
can prevent the company from talking about any HR issue and could
exist, in part, to protect them from suits.

But the suit would be for wrongful termination, not for any privacy
interest.

Who said otherwise?


[snip]


--
Matt Silberstein

I want to be different, I just don't want to change.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 12:40:26 GMT, Matt Silberstein matts2nopam@ix
netcom.nospamcom wrote:


First off, why frivolous? Certainly the can do such things to
avoid real cause litigation as well.

Because, in most jurisdictions, employment is at will, meaning the employer
can fire you for any non-prohibited reason (religion, race, etc. being
prohibited reasons).

Which does not mean that companies don't fire for inappropriate
reasons and then pay money to avoid lawsuits.

However there is an appropriate reason for firing this guy.

The problem is that too many strongly religious people behave in a
disruptive way and are fired for that - and they claim it's for being
Christian when it's actually for being disruptive.

What really worries me is his attitude towards his fellow flight crew.
They're supposed to work together as a co-ordinated team. I certainly
wouldn't want to be the passenger of a religious loony who can't get
on with the rest of his crew.

Second, you are paying too
much attention to the privacy issue.

I'm not paying any attention to the privacy issue. There is no privacy issue
implicated at all.

I don't think that companies
have privacy interests per se (unlike humans), but they do care
about their privacy for other reasons. A company privacy policy
can prevent the company from talking about any HR issue and could
exist, in part, to protect them from suits.

But the suit would be for wrongful termination, not for any privacy
interest.

Who said otherwise?

But I doubt it would be wrongful.

Most large companies have conditions of employment which include not
making the workplace hostile, including to customers.

I doubt AMR is any dirrerent.


[snip]