Ah. So that's why Boeing is designing their planes to have bolts that fly off mid-flight. It's actually a feature! Now they just need refine their process to only apply that feature to very specific planes.
Below 10,000 feet no problem, still pretty reliably effective. "There will be a small diversion before landing. Graveyard on the right as we approach."
The unfortunate reality is victim blaming is super common. It's easier to blame the victim and shame them into silence (or criminalize them) than do the right thing and pursue criminals.
@@Steamrunner You hit the nail on that. Victim blaming is how people pretend there's no justice to be served, when justice seems really hard and tiring. If the matter is too difficult or complex, it's easier to just say the victim is wrong than to make an effort.
Fortunately, it's still not acceptable in every situation. Any jury that sees that will just turn red, and tack on another million. Atty didn't think this one over very long...
Except, this is one of the few instances it's just forbidden to do so..."You expect a 9 year old to have the mental capacity to search a toilet seat before they use it...?" That will be another 2 million added to the settlement..."
Like that insurance adjuster who calimed the 70 year old lady pushed her dead car across town and set it on fire then walked back home in the middle of the night. Or the one who claimed license plates have no value.
I don't know who the lead lawyer that filed that was but how someone who is that lacking in forming a reasonable defence passed the bar exam is beyond me. Even a non lawyer would see this as a stupid defence.
@@119Agent well, that's two former employees fired, alas, without using actual fire. I'd honestly have asked that attorney, were he representing me in that manner, if he ever heard of the fine Russian practice of defenestration... At a very real risk of receiving a demonstration of defenestration. To say that it would have a major deleterious impact on the business is like saying that Genghis Khan wasn't well liked.
What I really wonder is if the law firm tries to blame a victim in the future while working for another client, can the other side bring it up in court that they are the same ones who made this argument?
Any law firm that didn't want to settle this, no matter the cost, as quickly and quietly as possible did not have the best interests of the airline in mind.
My experience when I was a law clerk to a federal judge was that lawyers will make any stupid argument with a straight face, often just for tactical reasons or to muddy the waters or to cover all the bases, even if the bases aren't worth covering. They would cite cases for one proposition when if you bothered to read the case, it said the opposite or undermined the proposition. If you want intellectual integrity, you won't get it from many lawyers.
I'm guessing that the only reason this backfired so badly is it got leaked out by the parents to the public. If it was kept quietly in a courtroom, they would still be representing American airlines.
In this case, the law firm got what they deserved. Now American Airline can claim what ever they want, their lawyer on their behalf argued, that a reasonable person has to expect cameras in their airplanes. No extraordinary circumstances. No "we take this seriously". A plain marketable claim "except cameras on the toilet of American Airline - please check before use".
@@sarowie I would not be surprised if the airlines' lawyers don't start recommending this sign on the door of the restrooms on planes. Sort of like those warnings on cups of coffee that "Coffee is hot."
Even IF this were an OK argument ... 9YO? You're hardly old enough to even know what's normal and what isn't when you're in a completely unfamiliar environment.
Exactly. She is paying attention to what needs to be paid attention to, not anything unrelated. Even for a normal adult who is already stressed (pre-stressed?), might respond the same way.
@@mrcryptozoic817 and how urgent is her need to use the toilet as fast as possible d/t the toilet might suck her out of the plane? children have unusual beliefs., fears. She wouldn't likely admit that because she doesn't want anyone to think she's a "baby".
If you look at the photos of how the creep had the phone taped to the seat with the flashlight on, it’s obvious why he was preying on kids. Even in the cramped confines of an airplane bathroom an adult would have instantly noticed the flashlight and camera pointed at where they were going to sit down and figured out what was going on. But as you said, a kid who maybe had never even been in an airplane before wouldn’t know what was and wasn’t normal and would be distracted by the unfamiliar environment already. The lawyer plainly isn’t emotionally intelligent enough to understand that different people have different abilities to understand what they’re seeing, and what’s obvious to an adult isn’t necessarily obvious to a child.
I saw this story earlier today and it is bizarre. I fired the law firm that represented not only myself but my company for 30 years because of a comment that one of the partners made to me regarding a citation I received in the mail. He told me what a great guy trooper was they gave me the citation for disorderly conduct which I ended up beating pro se. The smart thing would've been for him to say was "unfortunately we represent this individual as well as you and your company". The funny part is the trooper was arrested for domestic violence shortly after that. Apparently his judgment was poor, twice.
Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker is no longer representing American Airlines in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 9-year-old girl after the law firm argued that she was negligent for using a “compromised lavatory.” ...is what I got from Abajournal, another newspaper.
Lawyer guy Steve knows better than calling out a lawyer firm that makes their money from lawsuits, have you not noticed the fines given to a certain individual in a defamation suit? The adage about not poking the bear comes to mind.
I did see another video on this that described the incident in some detail, and the infuriating thing was this little girl *DID* realize something shady was going on and acted accordingly. She thought the whole “broken toilet seat, don’t touch the tape” instructions from the flight attendant was kinda strange right away, but she was somewhat preocupied by the fact that she really did need to go, but when she was finished, before she left she took a close look at the tape, saw that it seemed to be concealing a phone with the camera lens exposed, so she snapped a picture of it and immediately showed it to her parents, the father informed the lead flight attendant of the incident and things progressed from there. The kid was sharp enough to realize what was happening AND get photographic evidence of it, and this firm has the gall to try and blame her for not DOING WHAT SHE IN FACT DID DO! (Sorry, this is just the kind of story that inevitably drives me to all-caps ranting by the end)
It doesn't surprise me so much that someone was actually dumb enough to come up with the idea. What surprises me is that no one within the entire law firm stood up and said " that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard and there's no way we're going to file that".
Lawyers often suspend morality to more vigorously defend their client. It's a feature, not a bug, because morality requires judgment but judgment should only be done by the judge or jury after both sides have rendered their most vigorous arguments.
The moral bankruptcy came way before this. They didn't just decided to victim blame a 9 year old. They decided a long time ago that their policy for all women who are violated is to victim blame. They have a boilerplate ready to go regardless of the details of the case!!! Unfortunately someone forgot their due diligence, they just saw female and submitted it without checking. I'll bet you'll find the exact same defense on any other case of sexual misconduct by an employee from American.
@@cajunguy6502 exactly and I always wondered how relevant those bs arguments are. She was wearing skippy clothes so the man had no choice but to rape her etc. When the only thing you have is blaming the victim I would 100% of the time the piece of garbage did whatever they were accused of. As for corporations it makes no sense to put out an argument that makes them look worse then they already are by not settling. Sadly there are fewer and fewer airlines and people flying will choose spending less on companies with no ethics or morals. We as a society are getting EXACTLY what we pay for and its horrible and a disgrace.
I wonder if they would have fired the law firm if that defense had NOT made national news. Once that happened, I'm sure they were quite embarrassed and had to do something to save face.
I grew up in an era where adults always said to children “you have known better”. We were CHILDREN! If we “knew better”this event would not have happened and where the adults?
The fact that this has even gone as far as court is just insane. Clearly, the ONLY correct action is for American to approach the families of the victims and say "We're sorry this happened. What can we do to make it right?" That's it. Blank check time. No hesitation, no negotiations, just act right now.
If I were on a jury and an attorney said "they should have seen the camera on the toilet", I'd basically add enough zeroes in actual damages and punitive damages to make the person bankrupt. Yes, even a trillion dollar company would have *NOTHING* left.
I would love to be the fly on the wall in the law firm meeting about loosing AA as a client..🤭 But seriously that flight attendant needs to serve jail time!!🤬
I suspect that the new law firm has been told to make this case to quickly go away no matter what it costs. A few millions to a college fund is cheaper than senior executives being set on fire in court.
Even from a 100% selfish perspective, any sane attorney should have known the bad PR from this argument outweighed any potential help this absurd argument could give their case.
Lawyers who make stupid pleadings just to muddy the waters should be fined $100,000 for each instance. Put an end to this crap pretty quick if lawyers were held accountable.
If they (AA) settle it could be taken as an admission of guilt in other litigation. Further, in my opinion, AA shouldn't necessarily be on the hook for anything for whatever the attendant did unless the attendant was a registered offender or had restraining orders against him AND AA knew it. The lawsuit can also be used as proof for AA in other litigation that they didn't know what he was doing so that they may try to avoid being named in other suits for the same attendant. Just to be clear im not trying to defend the Attendant or the scummy law firm either.
I saw an article about this, and immediately dismissed it as an obvious fake. Someone ACTUALLY tried this?! It makes anything stupid I’ve ever done seem right up there with bloody DaVinci!
The twisted thrill of nakedness and inappropriate activity being watched. And that's between two consenting adults in private. An unwilling person, let alone a child? Add 'unsafe and stupid'.
If I was American Airlines, I would reach out to settle the case with this little girls family and promised to increase background checks and employee evaluations and bathroom safety. I would probably want to wrap this case up quickly and quietly at this point. Clearly it’s the fault of this other employee, and with miniaturization of technology it’s harder and harder to safeguard, but maybe there are some procedural ways that the employees can keep the airline safer for young people.
The Newport News school board defense for when the teacher was shot was that it was a worker's comp case because there was a reasonable expectation that a teacher could be shot at work.
I'm guessing their insurance company is making them fight it. I know of some schools where that has happened (teacher r****d a student on school grounds, school discovers it, reports it to the police and fires the teacher). The schools wanted to settle but their insurance companies said they weren't paying unless they fought it in court.
SOP for businesses, never admit guilt, try to out muscle (financially with your lawyers) anyone who tries to go against you, and if it looks like you're going to lose, settle and make sure as little information as possible makes it to the public with NDAs and the like. Honestly, if there's one thing about settlements that need to go is the "hush clauses", especially when it involves criminal behavior of any kind.
Or, man up, take responsibility and quietly settle. If they had done that and fire the employee, we may never have heard of this. It's like that case he was talking about before with the Streisand effect.
This HAD to have been written by AI and not read by anyone at the firm. No one is stupid enough to think that a 9 year old could be legally responsible for anything let alone neglect.
Kids are held to a standard of reasonable care of a typical child of their age. They can be liable for negligence, though they are often not held to the same standard as adults. I really doubt a court or jury would be amused by the argument AA's atts made here, though.
Steve, Having your own popular website must be fun for you, I know it is for us. Fun in the sense of informative for watchers. With so many alleged perverts and human disasters out there, it's amazing you maintain your sense of humor after so many years of practice. Cheers, Rik Spector
It would be for the best that American Airlines just take the L in this case and not even try to fight it. It was a good choice for them to fire their lawyers, but they need to go a step further and let this family win.
I can’t believe the airline even allowed this to go to court. They should have done everything they could have to just give the family what they wanted and make it go away.
@@corvettesbme "Ben" is the US $100 bill that Steve hides each video for us to find He's a bit obvious today, he's on the top shelf, left end, covering the view of the Red Viper model.
Do you know how happy I would be if an airlines lawyer tried to victim blame my 9 year old daughter? Dude, I'm going to have enough money to make my own airline by the time I'm done with them 😂
This line of blaming a CHILD is absolutely Abhorrent. The suspect in question needs to be remanded to jail and should need to register as a Predator if they get out of prison.
When you’re so supremely confident in contracting out departments like your legal team that you never really bother to check if they are actually representing you properly.
@@esteban1487 "Ben" is the US $100 bill that Steve hides each video for us to find, today he's on the top shelf left end, covering the view of the Red Viper model.
Two (2) things: 1.) Offer a settlement, stating that AA is legally on the hook despite having no way to know that that was happening. 2.) If I was on a flight with only one (1) male flight attendant, and saw an iPhone tapped to the toilet seat, I'd report it to the male flight attendant out of courtesy to the ladies.
Are you sure you thought that through? Since a MALE flight attendant is responsible for this you would be reporting the incident to the person responsible - hence giving him time to cover up his crime. Unfortunately, if I had seen a camera taped to the toilet seat my first thought would be "OK, which guy in here is the perv". I applaud your graciousness in wanting to spare the ladies such a distasteful sight. You are a true gentleman.
Understandable, but legal liability (as opposed to moral culpability) for the actions of one's employees while they're on the job is a real issue. A company hires people as its representatives, and they get the good and the bad that comes from that representation. This time it was the "bad." Was it a predictable outcome? That's what discovery is for, to determine what the company knew about his particular employee's behavior before the incident.
I don't get why this even went to lawsuit. If I was in charge, I'd just be whipping out the checkbook and writing a fair number in the box. But then again, I was taught to take responsibility for what I was in charge of.
Nah, I doubt the execs paid attention to anything at all their lawyers did until that point. The execs only cared about results and this result was massive PR backlash.
@@VideoArchiveGuy Yes I do, and THEY do. There is no autopilot in a lawsuit involving a nine year old girl in a bathroom getting photographed by an employee. I GUARANTEE you that they were following the case. Nothing better to do? Damn right there was nothing better to do! I can also GUARANTEE you that American has been talking with the parents about a settlement. Do you also think their attorneys handle that on their own?
As a young plaintiff’s lawyer I had an experienced defense attorney beat me over the head with my complaint for three days. You can bet that I thereafter cleaned up all my lawsuits before trial.
Years ago, a mechanic working for an airline company was performing an inspection, and that inspection directed to check the wings for cracks and corrosion. He found some crack in the skin in the fuselage. He got written up because he was not performing the proper inspection and therefore wasting the airlines time and money.
No company should reasonably be held responsible for the abnormal actions of an employee unless they have had some reason to suspect and did nothing. First time you hear about this and you fire the guy that should be the companies responsibility. How could you possibly know that one of your thousands of employees would be capable of something like this?
Employer liability is a pretty well-established thing in law. Same with negligent hiring practices or failure to act when they know or should've known an employee was a creep.
The airline really has nothing at this point. They have to settle, or the perception will be that they refuse to take responsibility. After that show the previous firm threw into the spotlight, they're in a corner.
Every time i HAVE to use a public lavatory I always feel like I am being recorded on a spy cam by some creep somewhere. It is absolutely disturbing these days. Im an adult and i would never blame a child. EVER! Im so glad they actually fired the law firm.
Hmm. I feel that charging and convicting a person because they overvalued their property assets to obtain a larger real estate development loan, despite a bank doing their own assessments of value before granting a loan, could quite possibly be even more absurd.
“Sorry folks we will be experiencing a temporary loss of pressurization in the cabin while we throw the trash out”
Ah. So that's why Boeing is designing their planes to have bolts that fly off mid-flight. It's actually a feature! Now they just need refine their process to only apply that feature to very specific planes.
Hmm... trap doors on planes... 🤔
Prepare to copy a number for possible attorney deviation.
(That's a pilot joke!)
Below 10,000 feet no problem, still pretty reliably effective. "There will be a small diversion before landing. Graveyard on the right as we approach."
And the applause rang out!
Pretty sad when child victims get blamed.
The unfortunate reality is victim blaming is super common. It's easier to blame the victim and shame them into silence (or criminalize them) than do the right thing and pursue criminals.
It shows you that the courts are not about justice or sanity. It's a for profit system where "games are played" and almost never justice is served.
@@Steamrunner You hit the nail on that. Victim blaming is how people pretend there's no justice to be served, when justice seems really hard and tiring. If the matter is too difficult or complex, it's easier to just say the victim is wrong than to make an effort.
Fortunately, it's still not acceptable in every situation. Any jury that sees that will just turn red, and tack on another million. Atty didn't think this one over very long...
Except, this is one of the few instances it's just forbidden to do so..."You expect a 9 year old to have the mental capacity to search a toilet seat before they use it...?" That will be another 2 million added to the settlement..."
Like that insurance adjuster who calimed the 70 year old lady pushed her dead car across town and set it on fire then walked back home in the middle of the night. Or the one who claimed license plates have no value.
Yep. I remember both those cases.
Blame the victim defense.
Like a child predator saying, “The 9 year old wanted the romantic relationship.”
I don't know who the lead lawyer that filed that was but how someone who is that lacking in forming a reasonable defence passed the bar exam is beyond me. Even a non lawyer would see this as a stupid defence.
American was quick to dump them. Yikes
@@LisaRent its been tried. Disgusting reality we live in. In fact MAP sites are endorsed by certain platforms.
@@119Agent well, that's two former employees fired, alas, without using actual fire. I'd honestly have asked that attorney, were he representing me in that manner, if he ever heard of the fine Russian practice of defenestration...
At a very real risk of receiving a demonstration of defenestration. To say that it would have a major deleterious impact on the business is like saying that Genghis Khan wasn't well liked.
How anyone can blame the victim for this is crazy. I fully understand that the law firm is hired to protect their client but this is insane.
What I really wonder is if the law firm tries to blame a victim in the future while working for another client, can the other side bring it up in court that they are the same ones who made this argument?
Welcome to the Democrat Party
Exactly
@@HariSeldon913each case tried on their own merits.
@@knerduno5942 Just like Donald Trump blamed EJ Carroll.
When a law professor says outright that it was a stupid defense, it's a seriously stupid assed defense that rightfully got one fired.
Any law firm that didn't want to settle this, no matter the cost, as quickly and quietly as possible did not have the best interests of the airline in mind.
My experience when I was a law clerk to a federal judge was that lawyers will make any stupid argument with a straight face, often just for tactical reasons or to muddy the waters or to cover all the bases, even if the bases aren't worth covering. They would cite cases for one proposition when if you bothered to read the case, it said the opposite or undermined the proposition. If you want intellectual integrity, you won't get it from many lawyers.
The chewbacca defence?
That is so true
I'm guessing that the only reason this backfired so badly is it got leaked out by the parents to the public. If it was kept quietly in a courtroom, they would still be representing American airlines.
In this case, the law firm got what they deserved. Now American Airline can claim what ever they want, their lawyer on their behalf argued, that a reasonable person has to expect cameras in their airplanes.
No extraordinary circumstances. No "we take this seriously".
A plain marketable claim "except cameras on the toilet of American Airline - please check before use".
@@sarowie I would not be surprised if the airlines' lawyers don't start recommending this sign on the door of the restrooms on planes. Sort of like those warnings on cups of coffee that "Coffee is hot."
Even IF this were an OK argument ... 9YO? You're hardly old enough to even know what's normal and what isn't when you're in a completely unfamiliar environment.
Exactly. She is paying attention to what needs to be paid attention to, not anything unrelated. Even for a normal adult who is already stressed (pre-stressed?), might respond the same way.
And have the courage to stand up and say something?
@@mrcryptozoic817 and how urgent is her need to use the toilet as fast as possible d/t the toilet might suck her out of the plane? children have unusual beliefs., fears. She wouldn't likely admit that because she doesn't want anyone to think she's a "baby".
If you look at the photos of how the creep had the phone taped to the seat with the flashlight on, it’s obvious why he was preying on kids. Even in the cramped confines of an airplane bathroom an adult would have instantly noticed the flashlight and camera pointed at where they were going to sit down and figured out what was going on. But as you said, a kid who maybe had never even been in an airplane before wouldn’t know what was and wasn’t normal and would be distracted by the unfamiliar environment already. The lawyer plainly isn’t emotionally intelligent enough to understand that different people have different abilities to understand what they’re seeing, and what’s obvious to an adult isn’t necessarily obvious to a child.
This is precisely what attracts pedophiles to children, their lack of life experience. It's inherently predatory.
I saw this story earlier today and it is bizarre. I fired the law firm that represented not only myself but my company for 30 years because of a comment that one of the partners made to me regarding a citation I received in the mail. He told me what a great guy trooper was they gave me the citation for disorderly conduct which I ended up beating pro se. The smart thing would've been for him to say was "unfortunately we represent this individual as well as you and your company". The funny part is the trooper was arrested for domestic violence shortly after that. Apparently his judgment was poor, twice.
The name of the law firm needs to be released so that other clients can avoid them.
it's public record you can look it up
It was.
That bombshell court filing from the law firm Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP led to “intense media and public backlash,”
An airline spokesperson confirmed Friday that the Wilson Elser law firm is no longer defending American in a lawsuit filed by the girl's family.
Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker is no longer representing American Airlines in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 9-year-old girl after the law firm argued that she was negligent for using a “compromised lavatory.” ...is what I got from Abajournal, another newspaper.
Lawyer guy Steve knows better than calling out a lawyer firm that makes their money from lawsuits, have you not noticed the fines given to a certain individual in a defamation suit? The adage about not poking the bear comes to mind.
I feel like a competent law firm would have said "Settle this at the speed of light, there's no winning this case."
some companies don't want to play it like that, they're mostly all snakes
Yeah, this is very much a "you can't afford *not* to give these people a large amount of money to go away" situation.
I did see another video on this that described the incident in some detail, and the infuriating thing was this little girl *DID* realize something shady was going on and acted accordingly. She thought the whole “broken toilet seat, don’t touch the tape” instructions from the flight attendant was kinda strange right away, but she was somewhat preocupied by the fact that she really did need to go, but when she was finished, before she left she took a close look at the tape, saw that it seemed to be concealing a phone with the camera lens exposed, so she snapped a picture of it and immediately showed it to her parents, the father informed the lead flight attendant of the incident and things progressed from there. The kid was sharp enough to realize what was happening AND get photographic evidence of it, and this firm has the gall to try and blame her for not DOING WHAT SHE IN FACT DID DO! (Sorry, this is just the kind of story that inevitably drives me to all-caps ranting by the end)
If anything deserves an all caps rant, this is it.
@@dianeladico1769yes I was going to say the very same thing.'Caps' away my friend!
I don't think it was the 9yo that did that, it was the 14yo.
it was a 2nd child the 14 y/o girl that noticed and took a picture of the phone and reported it to the other stewardess.
This is just so egregious - I wouldn't mind am all caps rant. Not one bit.
It doesn't surprise me so much that someone was actually dumb enough to come up with the idea. What surprises me is that no one within the entire law firm stood up and said " that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard and there's no way we're going to file that".
Victim blaming a nine year old child has got to be one of the most horrid defenses I have ever heard.
Happens all the time
Imagine the lawyer sitting there typing this up thinking, "Oh yeah, we're totally going to nail them here."
How morally bankrupt must you be in order to propose such an argument?
On a corporate level? This is like a three out of ten.
Lawyers often suspend morality to more vigorously defend their client. It's a feature, not a bug, because morality requires judgment but judgment should only be done by the judge or jury after both sides have rendered their most vigorous arguments.
The moral bankruptcy came way before this. They didn't just decided to victim blame a 9 year old. They decided a long time ago that their policy for all women who are violated is to victim blame. They have a boilerplate ready to go regardless of the details of the case!!! Unfortunately someone forgot their due diligence, they just saw female and submitted it without checking. I'll bet you'll find the exact same defense on any other case of sexual misconduct by an employee from American.
@@cajunguy6502 exactly and I always wondered how relevant those bs arguments are. She was wearing skippy clothes so the man had no choice but to rape her etc. When the only thing you have is blaming the victim I would 100% of the time the piece of garbage did whatever they were accused of. As for corporations it makes no sense to put out an argument that makes them look worse then they already are by not settling. Sadly there are fewer and fewer airlines and people flying will choose spending less on companies with no ethics or morals. We as a society are getting EXACTLY what we pay for and its horrible and a disgrace.
This makes me wonder if a client can raise an objection to their own lawyer in court.
I wonder if they would have fired the law firm if that defense had NOT made national news.
Once that happened, I'm sure they were quite embarrassed and had to do something to save face.
Yep. I just posted this same point in a different comment. Great minds think alike. 😂
@@kenmore01 - Yep! Right you are. 😉
🎯
I grew up in an era where adults always said to children “you have known better”. We were CHILDREN! If we “knew better”this event would not have happened and where the adults?
I would not be surprised if the lawyer was fired from the law firm for costing the firm this client and possibly other clients.
The fact that this has even gone as far as court is just insane. Clearly, the ONLY correct action is for American to approach the families of the victims and say "We're sorry this happened. What can we do to make it right?" That's it. Blank check time. No hesitation, no negotiations, just act right now.
Deny Deny Deny than blame the victim
It never ceases to amaze me what terrible people there are in the world.
Your statement means you are a good person. At my age, I’m no longer surprised at anything.
If I were on a jury and an attorney said "they should have seen the camera on the toilet", I'd basically add enough zeroes in actual damages and punitive damages to make the person bankrupt.
Yes, even a trillion dollar company would have *NOTHING* left.
I would love to be the fly on the wall in the law firm meeting about loosing AA as a client..🤭 But seriously that flight attendant needs to serve jail time!!🤬
Oh I'm sure it's recorded somewhere for record. It'll just never be shared.
I suspect that the new law firm has been told to make this case to quickly go away no matter what it costs. A few millions to a college fund is cheaper than senior executives being set on fire in court.
Even from a 100% selfish perspective, any sane attorney should have known the bad PR from this argument outweighed any potential help this absurd argument could give their case.
What a Ridiculous filing... thinking that a 9y/o should have seen camera in the toilet...
Glad they got FIRED!
😱😬🤬
george
😎🤿🦈🦑🇺🇸
TEXAS
Lawyers who make stupid pleadings just to muddy the waters should be fined $100,000 for each instance. Put an end to this crap pretty quick if lawyers were held accountable.
They did. Literally lost a million dollar annual revenue stream from a huge corporation client.
Their employee has been allleged to this multiple times. It is a pattern of behavior the airline should have known about.
Information source?
@@lynchkid003 Washington Post
Why is there a lawsuit at all? This should have been settled immediately and never made it to court in the first place.
If they (AA) settle it could be taken as an admission of guilt in other litigation. Further, in my opinion, AA shouldn't necessarily be on the hook for anything for whatever the attendant did unless the attendant was a registered offender or had restraining orders against him AND AA knew it. The lawsuit can also be used as proof for AA in other litigation that they didn't know what he was doing so that they may try to avoid being named in other suits for the same attendant. Just to be clear im not trying to defend the Attendant or the scummy law firm either.
@@trued2010 Usually there are NDAs in settlements and a statement of non-guilt. With no financial information given. All to avoid just what you said.
"Boeing is the worst."
American- "Hold my tiny bag of peanuts."
😅😄😅 well done. Thanks for the laugh
But "United Breaks Guitars". Look it up, and enjoy.
ok I have to ask, is that really your name or did you get that from Postal 2?
never had this problem with Airbus....!
@@mainstuff7858 I know what you're thinking. Funny thing is, i dont even like video games.
In the realm of questionable defenses, this one SHOULD have expected the Spanish Inquisition.
I didn't expect a mention of the Spanish Inquisition!
I saw an article about this, and immediately dismissed it as an obvious fake. Someone ACTUALLY tried this?! It makes anything stupid I’ve ever done seem right up there with bloody DaVinci!
Sounds like this lawfirm had experience representing law enforcement. Take zero accountability and always blame the victim.
Right!
Congratulations for having the comment of the century.
@@steveshattah Yes ... FTP! 😂
Why would anyone want to watch anyone else go to the bathroom?
I'll never understand these gross fetishes.
The twisted thrill of nakedness and inappropriate activity being watched. And that's between two consenting adults in private.
An unwilling person, let alone a child? Add 'unsafe and stupid'.
Gee I wonder why lawyers are hated.
Going under oath doesnt stop twisting the truth, deception, and outright lies from corporate representatives.
If I was American Airlines, I would reach out to settle the case with this little girls family and promised to increase background checks and employee evaluations and bathroom safety.
I would probably want to wrap this case up quickly and quietly at this point. Clearly it’s the fault of this other employee, and with miniaturization of technology it’s harder and harder to safeguard, but maybe there are some procedural ways that the employees can keep the airline safer for young people.
American Airlines hired a sicko!🤬👎🏻
The Newport News school board defense for when the teacher was shot was that it was a worker's comp case because there was a reasonable expectation that a teacher could be shot at work.
The flight attendant should be in jail for multiple reasons including child pornography
40 seconds in and I’m already facepalming myself 😂
Wouldn't a law firm be prudent in having court documents proof read before submitting them?
Why did American even let this go to court? Deny, deny, deny…
I'm guessing their insurance company is making them fight it. I know of some schools where that has happened (teacher r****d a student on school grounds, school discovers it, reports it to the police and fires the teacher). The schools wanted to settle but their insurance companies said they weren't paying unless they fought it in court.
SOP for businesses, never admit guilt, try to out muscle (financially with your lawyers) anyone who tries to go against you, and if it looks like you're going to lose, settle and make sure as little information as possible makes it to the public with NDAs and the like. Honestly, if there's one thing about settlements that need to go is the "hush clauses", especially when it involves criminal behavior of any kind.
@@Mike__Bthe criminal part of this is different from the civil case.
Or, man up, take responsibility and quietly settle. If they had done that and fire the employee, we may never have heard of this. It's like that case he was talking about before with the Streisand effect.
@@kenmore01 There's also the possibility that the family rejected a settlement offer (which is their right) and insisted on taking it to trial.
It's just Sick. What's the world coming to?! Sick Employees, Sick Lawyers.
This HAD to have been written by AI and not read by anyone at the firm. No one is stupid enough to think that a 9 year old could be legally responsible for anything let alone neglect.
Unfortunately, contributory (or comparative) negligence is a valid defense in civil negligence cases--even when dealing with children.
Artificial Idiocy!
Kids are held to a standard of reasonable care of a typical child of their age. They can be liable for negligence, though they are often not held to the same standard as adults.
I really doubt a court or jury would be amused by the argument AA's atts made here, though.
Do you know how awful you have to be for a American Airlines, the airline touted as the worst in the country, to be like, "that's awful?"
They should have hired the "lawfirm" defending Boeing....What girl? there was never a little child.
Boeing's lawyers are very very busy as of late.
Steve,
Having your own popular website must be fun for you, I know
it is for us.
Fun in the sense of informative for watchers.
With so many alleged perverts and human disasters out there,
it's amazing you maintain your sense of humor after so many years of practice.
Cheers,
Rik Spector
It would be for the best that American Airlines just take the L in this case and not even try to fight it. It was a good choice for them to fire their lawyers, but they need to go a step further and let this family win.
the ULTIMATE in "blaming the victim"
I can’t believe the airline even allowed this to go to court. They should have done everything they could have to just give the family what they wanted and make it go away.
Whoever this lawyer that made this argument needs to be disbared.
Ben is in front of the mike on our left.
What is Ben. I don't get it
@@corvettesbme "Ben" is the US $100 bill that Steve hides each video for us to find
He's a bit obvious today, he's on the top shelf, left end, covering the view of the Red Viper model.
@@corvettesbme Ben is Steve's US $100 bill that moves around the set and people try to find. (Benjamin Franklin being shown on that bill.)
Do you know how happy I would be if an airlines lawyer tried to victim blame my 9 year old daughter? Dude, I'm going to have enough money to make my own airline by the time I'm done with them 😂
That's literally the job of an attorney. The dumbest arguments always come from attorneys.
Law firm should have sued the phone maker and 3M (tape manufacturer). They "should have known"...
😅 too funny...and somehow I wouldn't be surprised if it really happened...
This line of blaming a CHILD is absolutely Abhorrent. The suspect in question needs to be remanded to jail and should need to register as a Predator if they get out of prison.
When you’re so supremely confident in contracting out departments like your legal team that you never really bother to check if they are actually representing you properly.
Ben trying to see who's driving the miniature Cobra, in front of the Red Viper, Steve's RHS
wrf u talking about?
@@esteban1487 "Ben" is the US $100 bill that Steve hides each video for us to find, today he's on the top shelf left end, covering the view of the Red Viper model.
@@Bobs-Wrigles5555 Ah! Little Easter egg. I did not know that. Thx!
All those who green lit that argument should have bar complaints filed against them for gross stupidity.
Two (2) things:
1.) Offer a settlement, stating that AA is legally on the hook despite having no way to know that that was happening.
2.) If I was on a flight with only one (1) male flight attendant, and saw an iPhone tapped to the toilet seat, I'd report it to the male flight attendant out of courtesy to the ladies.
Are you sure you thought that through?
Since a MALE flight attendant is responsible for this you would be reporting the incident to the person responsible - hence giving him time to cover up his crime. Unfortunately, if I had seen a camera taped to the toilet seat my first thought would be "OK, which guy in here is the perv".
I applaud your graciousness in wanting to spare the ladies such a distasteful sight. You are a true gentleman.
Sounds similar to what my eye Dr did in his home, Fort Collins, CO. Caused me to be curious if they every found cameras in the office restroom...
An oath doesn't need a god of any flavor. Not even one with meatballs.
Flying spaghetti anyone? LOL
That flight attendant was a real creep and should be locked up but why is the company culpable? I can't believe I'm sympathizing with an airline.
Understandable, but legal liability (as opposed to moral culpability) for the actions of one's employees while they're on the job is a real issue. A company hires people as its representatives, and they get the good and the bad that comes from that representation. This time it was the "bad." Was it a predictable outcome? That's what discovery is for, to determine what the company knew about his particular employee's behavior before the incident.
Is it normal to blame the victim?
the child would certainly be the victim of the perversion.
Ben is inverted in front of mic#1 from the left
Even if you lure a child into behaving inappropriately, you as the adult are at fault for causing the situation.
You can have a bobcat as a pet in Florida. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I don't get why this even went to lawsuit. If I was in charge, I'd just be whipping out the checkbook and writing a fair number in the box.
But then again, I was taught to take responsibility for what I was in charge of.
It's hard for me to imagine that an exec at American didn't know what the law firm was going to do.
Nah, I doubt the execs paid attention to anything at all their lawyers did until that point. The execs only cared about results and this result was massive PR backlash.
Exactly
You think execs at AA have nothing better to do than see what arguments will be made in the thousands of lawsuits AA is fighting on any given day?
@@redneckcoder Doesn't matter. The exec that hired the firm belongs in a woodchipper along with the lawyer who made the argument
@@VideoArchiveGuy Yes I do, and THEY do. There is no autopilot in a lawsuit involving a nine year old girl in a bathroom getting photographed by an employee. I GUARANTEE you that they were following the case. Nothing better to do? Damn right there was nothing better to do! I can also GUARANTEE you that American has been talking with the parents about a settlement. Do you also think their attorneys handle that on their own?
As a young plaintiff’s lawyer I had an experienced defense attorney beat me over the head with my complaint for three days. You can bet that I thereafter cleaned up all my lawsuits before trial.
The defense in corporate cases is often part of PR. Indeed, EVERYTHING done using a corporation 's name is Public Relations. Everything.
Steve, I watch court hearings all the time and I have heard judges say, "So help you god." I quip back "Nope, I will not." 😅
Airline should just settle case there is no coming back from that.
AA had to know the intent of their lawyers filing outline, before it occurred. Then fired the firm. Fire the board of AA!
Do you honestly think AA tracks the thousands of court hearings their lawyers go to daily?
Thanks for covering this I was wondering what happened with this case, absolutely ridiculous lmao
Years ago, a mechanic working for an airline company was performing an inspection, and that inspection directed to check the wings for cracks and corrosion. He found some crack in the skin in the fuselage. He got written up because he was not performing the proper inspection and therefore wasting the airlines time and money.
On the Oath, raise your right hand, "But I'm left handed".
No company should reasonably be held responsible for the abnormal actions of an employee unless they have had some reason to suspect and did nothing. First time you hear about this and you fire the guy that should be the companies responsibility. How could you possibly know that one of your thousands of employees would be capable of something like this?
Employer liability is a pretty well-established thing in law. Same with negligent hiring practices or failure to act when they know or should've known an employee was a creep.
@@blackosprey2219 in this case they didn't know and couldn't possibly have known.
Whoever lawyer who wrote this up thought of blaming the 9 year old was definitely smoking something.
Surely had to fire the firm. Imagine the tens of millions in bad PR it would cost them.
The airline really has nothing at this point. They have to settle, or the perception will be that they refuse to take responsibility. After that show the previous firm threw into the spotlight, they're in a corner.
Every time i HAVE to use a public lavatory I always feel like I am being recorded on a spy cam by some creep somewhere. It is absolutely disturbing these days.
Im an adult and i would never blame a child. EVER!
Im so glad they actually fired the law firm.
The 9th Circle of Hell is overrun with lawyers. Which is why it is the 9th Circle of Hell.
The devil is a lawyer. Lawful evil... 🥴
AA made a huge mistake allowing this issue to go in this direction. Something like this has the potential to take down a company.
These insane court rules that lead to this crazy stuff should be reviewed.
I heard they blamed the girl from another source, I am SO GLAD to hear they got fuggin fired. Good riddance.
AA is just CYA - they knew what their lawyers’ plan of attack was
Hmm. I feel that charging and convicting a person because they overvalued their property assets to obtain a larger real estate development loan, despite a bank doing their own assessments of value before granting a loan, could quite possibly be even more absurd.
My defence would be that I didn’t know this was happening and can’t control all the actions of an employee.
And it was a flight attendant? How did they not instantly settle this as quietly as possible?
The degree of grossness alone…
"You understand you will be fired for that, right?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Get in the Catapult."
When you slam dunk at a deposition, do you give that incredible gotcha smile?
I feel sorry for women that have to use airplane bathrooms. Very few things are more disgusting than airplane bathrooms.
Just the women?
whoever that lawyer is that suggested that, needs to be brought before the ethics review board. How is this ethical to blame a victim?
Airlines and air travel have become terrible
Actually they become cheap. Which is the reason for terrible.
now the law firm needs a law firm.
Can a nine year old even legally be held to the standard of negligence?