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United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

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Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#81

Post by sjg007 »

revelation wrote: post #75
zeteo wrote: post #19

The subtext here is that customers don't have any actual rights when dealing with a large corporation. The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure that it's virtually certain for a corporate lawyer to find some justification somewhere for almost anything. The corporate employees and the police both operate on this assumption. As a customer, your only recourse is to meekly accept whatever treatment is comi…

Hence why in the EU, most terms of service are essentially meaningless. If a judge finds your clauses surprising or an undue burden on the customer, they are null and void.

It's the same in the US if you go to court. There are expected warranties and consumer laws. Corporations try to take it away and use many levels of policy and obfuscation to wear you down but once you get to court you have the ball.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#82

Post by logicallee »

zeteo wrote: post #19

The subtext here is that customers don't have any actual rights when dealing with a large corporation. The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure that it's virtually certain for a corporate lawyer to find some justification somewhere for almost anything. The corporate employees and the police both operate on this assumption. As a customer, your only recourse is to meekly accept whatever treatment is comi…

>The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure

I don't think it's fair of you to criticize either the length or the obscurity of terms of service. After all, you could replace nearly all of them with:

" 1. We have every right of every kind and can do anything, without being liable for anything.

2. you have no rights of any kind and may do nothing, except those afforded by law, which you hereby waive as far as legally possible. "

More forward-thinking startups might add something to the effect of "Of course this does not mean we are Satan! We will naturally make an effort to provide roughly the service you have paid for. However, nothing in this section should be construed as a statement that we shall not act like Satan in any particular instance. We reserve the right to be Satan at any time and our sole discretion without providing any prior written warning. You've been warned."

Did I miss anything?

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#83

Post by The_Magistrate »

maxerickson wrote: post #72
eridius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So United personal should have known they are in a legal grey area when removing a passenger who had boarded. From what I've read, they weren't in a grey area, they were doing something that was specifically illegal. A grey area is when it may or may not be illegal. This wasn't grey.

Any of those explain why force majeure would not apply? (I'm not implying it would, I'm curious to read an analysis that covers it)

Force majeure doesn't apply in this circumstance because it requires an external force or event that is unforeseeable. In this case, United didn't plan correctly for the transport of its 4 employees, something well within its capability to predict.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#84

Post by grasshopperpurp »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #43
dionidium wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, like the notion that police should aim for the knees when shooting at suspects, is one of those perennial concerns that doesn't survive contact with reality. Once force is applied, you shouldn't be surprised when things go wrong. Force is messy. Which is why, yes, it should be viewed as a last resort. Maybe there are better ways to resolve this situation wrt to the police and the airline. But I think basic comm…

Once the police were there, he resolved it the best possible way for him; he stood his ground, got a little banged up, and will not be quite rich for the idiocy of everyone involved.

Exactly this. It's not hard to understand. If you know you're right, and you're not afraid of being assaulted, stand up for yourself; or in his case, stay seated (for the wise guys). If someone told you that you'd be entitled to millions for going through what this guy did, you'd take it 100 times out of 100.

That's not to downplay how horrendously the situation was handled. The airline deserves to pay damages, and he deserves the money. But, to suggest that he didn't help by not cooperating is one of the silliest ideas swirling around.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#85

Post by hysan »

If the information in this article is true, which seems to be the case after reading most of the linked sources, then a lot of the news articles that were cited are reporting false information. Now that immediately made me curious to see if Google Fact Check would flag these news articles as false or possibly false. Doing a quick search shows no Fact Check under any of the search results, so seems like the answer is no.

If Fact Check really becomes a thing, I hope that Google will be able to use current events like this as a bar for how fast Fact Check needs to respond to an event to make it useful. If they could find and source well researched information and immediately flag misreported news articles while a topic is at the forefront of the news, then it would immensely help educate people. For example:

My parents have not stopped talking about this since it happened and are still looking at and reading news about it. There was some misreported information that I had to clear up for them. If Fact Check worked, then it definitely would have prevented misinformation spreading to them and probably many others.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#86

Post by thanksgiving »

Analemma_ wrote: post #60
kafkaesq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subtext here is that customers don't have any actual rights when dealing with a large corporation. Well, no -- they just don't have much bargaining power . Which is different.

No, the GP has it right: for all practical purposes, customers have no rights, especially when their contracts include binding arbitration clauses, since arbitration rules against the company essentially never.

> No, the GP has it right: for all practical purposes, customers have no rights, especially when their contracts include binding arbitration clauses, since arbitration rules against the company essentially never.

I don't want to make it partisan but with all due respect TOS is not the law (oh btw, please keep pushing to repeal the CFAA in the US). We don't live in a libertarian "paradise".

I've heard of anecdotes where a judge throws a pre-nuptial agreement because it was too one-sided? I think the same should apply to terms of service and arbitration clauses. They cannot supersede the law or become the law.

Something people are not talking about is why isn't there a lawsuit against the police department? They're the ones who did the actual assaulting?

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#87

Post by maxerickson »

The_Magistrate wrote: post #83
maxerickson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of those explain why force majeure would not apply? (I'm not implying it would, I'm curious to read an analysis that covers it)

Force majeure doesn't apply in this circumstance because it requires an external force or event that is unforeseeable. In this case, United didn't plan correctly for the transport of its 4 employees, something well within its capability to predict.

There were massive storms in the few days prior to the incident. That could disrupt their planning.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#88

Post by drfuchs »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #40
drfuchs wrote: post #26

Why didn't they just keep doubling the offer for volunteers? Surely by $1600 or $3200 someone would bite. Then everyone is happy, it all gets finished quickly, and there's no chance of this sort of PR disaster (even docile removees can end up in the news if they then, say, miss the death of a hospitalized family member due to the delay).

Because handbook says a certain amount is the maximum they can offer, and likely the crew offering more would risk their job. Following this fiasco, Munoz said they will expand the handbook. We'll see.

Right; the question is "Why is it not the policy of United to keep doubling until they get enough takers?"

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#89

Post by ProAm »

cmurf wrote: post #69
lostlogin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the 1.6 billion that came off the stock price, anything looks cheap.

The current price is the same as it was 5 days ago. There's no meaningful impact to the stock price, it was a temporary retreat.

We dont know that yet. Lets see how this quarter and next quarter and the lawsuit turn out.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#90

Post by ambulancechaser »

dionidium wrote: post #44
andmarios wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article suggests that the airline was the one breaking the law and not the passenger. So in this case the police helped the airline commit a crime. Is this nowadays what means to have a police force?

The central thesis of my argument is that the ins and outs of each side's claims can be litigated later on. At that moment, the cops probably don't (and likely in principle can't ) know exactly who is right and who is wrong and in fact this isn't at all the role we expect the police to fill .

I believe this is correct. If there is a civil argument, it can be heard in an appropriate venue. But once the owner/operator of an FAA regulated aircraft has asked you to leave you no longer have any recourse and the word of the airplane crew carries quite a bit of weight.

I'm seeing the suggestion that United broke the law which doesn't quite seem to be what this article is saying. The article is saying they breached their own contract of carriage. This would allow for damages afterwards in civil procedures but i can't imagine how it gives the man the right to ignore the order of crew and airport police to get off the plane.

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