Lawsuit against United might be in the wind
Lawyers for the Kentucky man violently pulled from a United Airlines flight Sunday have asked a court to order the airline and Chicago aviation police to preserve evidence documenting the incident, which has enraged people around the world.
In the emergency motion, counsel for David A.D. Dao asks that surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, incident reports, and passenger, crew and employee lists be saved for use in Dao’s expected lawsuit.
The motion also asks for United’s protocol for removing passengers and for the personnel file of the Aviation Department employee who removed Dao from the plane Sunday and was later suspended.
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The pleading was filed in Cook County Circuit Court, in Chicago. No lawsuit has been filed yet.
Dao’s Chicago lawyers also announced that they and Dao’s daughter, Helen, will address the media at a news conference Thursday in Chicago.
The filing recites how Dao, after being “duly processed by the ticket agent, checked in by the attendant, and seated in his assigned passenger seat,” was “forcibly dragged and removed from the said aircraft by city employees, sustaining personal injury.”
In what has been denounced as a public relations blunder, the CEO of United, Oscar Munoz, which is named as a respondent, first apologized only for having to “re-accommodate” passengers, then blamed Dao. Only after the airline came under intense criticism and its stock price plunged did Munoz fully apologize and acknowledge the airline’s responsibility.
Dao is represented by the famed aviation and personal injury firm of Demetrio & Corboy and other lawyers.
Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com.
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