Cyrus Dugger

Public Citizen: American Airlines Must Compensate Victim of Racial Profiling

From Public Citizen:

A Boston jury last Friday ruled in favor of an airline passenger who had been removed from an American Airlines (AA) flight because of racial profiling. The jury awarded $400,000 total, including compensatory and punitive damages, to our client, John Cerqueira, in the first federal civil rights case challenging post-9/11 racial profiling by an airline.

Mr. Cerqueira, who is of Portuguese descent and has lived in the United States since he was six years old, was returning home to South Florida in 2003 after visiting his family in Massachusetts for the holidays. He was taken off a flight after the airline discriminated against him because it mistakenly believed that he was of Arab, Middle Eastern, or South Asian descent.

After he was questioned and cleared by the Massachusetts State Police, and despite being a frequent flier with American Airlines, AA still refused to book him on another flight home and would not provide an adequate explanation for its decision.

This experience left Cerqueira, a self-employed computer consultant, frightened to fly and unable to continue traveling for his work.

The jury deliberated for two days after hearing four days of evidence, before returning a verdict for the plaintiff.

“This jury verdict sends a message that airlines can’t make a vague reference to security to insulate themselves from liability for civil rights’ violations.”
—Michael Kirkpatrick, Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney, representing John Cerqueira

Posted at 2:55 PM, Jan 19, 2007 in Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)