Airlines Lawyer Up as Plaintiffs Seek MDL in Cases Demanding Refunds for COVID-19 Cancellations
Nicholas Coulson, of Liddle & Dubin, who claims to have 12 of the 38 class actions filed against airlines over their alleged failure to provide passenger refunds, is the latest attorney to ask the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to coordinate cases relating to COVID-19.
June 19, 2020 at 05:00 PM
3 minute read
Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines and dozens of other airlines face nearly 40 class actions over their alleged failure to refund passengers amid the COVID-19 pandemic—and now, one plaintiffs lawyer wants them coordinated into multidistrict litigation.
Nicholas Coulson, of Liddle & Dubin in Detroit, who claims to be involved in 12 of the cases, filed a motion before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to coordinate the cases in Illinois or, as alternatives, Georgia or Florida. Coulson's motion, filed Tuesday, seeks to coordinate 38 cases involving 21 domestic and foreign airlines.
"As alleged in the actions, the defendant airlines have each refused to honor the refund obligations imposed on them by their own contractual agreements and federal law," Coulson wrote. "Instead, they have offered their customers an unwanted raincheck, functionally taking an interest-free bridge loan (which in many cases will never be repaid before the voucher expires) from their customers in addition to the billions of taxpayer dollars provided in the form of federal bailouts. As a result, passengers nationwide have been deprived of refunds to which they are entitled for flights that they did not take, in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in living memory."
The motion is the latest to ask the MDL panel to coordinate cases relating to the novel coronavirus pandemic, with others involving lawsuits against insurance firms over business interruption claims, against banks over their handling of COVID-19 relief loans to small businesses and against StubHub and others over unrefunded tickets.
Some firms have appeared for the airlines to defend against the refund cases, including David Balser, at King & Spalding in Atlanta, for Delta, and William Katt, a Milwaukee partner who is chairman of the aviation and aerospace practice at Wilson Elser, for Frontier Airlines. Airline veteran Roy Goldberg, a partner at Stinson in Washington, D.C., has stepped in for JetBlue and Southwest.
This week's motion cites the U.S. Department of Transportation's April 3 order stating that airlines must refund customers after canceling their flights because of COVID-19. The motion says the cases allege breach of contract, which the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 does not preempt, and are likely to increase in number.
Coulson is seeking an MDL in the Northern District of Illinois, where the first cases filed, against United Airlines, are now before U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin. Other options, he wrote, are the Northern District of Georgia, headquarters to Delta, the airline with the world's largest revenues, or the Southern District of Florida, home to Spirit Airlines, which faces more lawsuits than any other airline. He suggested U.S. District Judge Roy Altman of the Southern District of Florida and U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia.
The motion cites other MDLs that have been based on industries, such as banks in the overdraft checking account litigation and pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors in the opioid crisis, in support of coordinating the cases against the airline industry.
"Here, the salient factual core is the same in each case; the pandemic resulted in the cancellation of many flights and the airlines failed to refund passengers for those flights," Coulson wrote.
|This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllDivided State Court Reinstates Dispute Over Replacement Vehicles Fees
5 minute readAm Law 200 Firm to Defend PUMA in Latest Quarrel Over Patented Shoe Technology
Apple Asks Judge to 'Follow the Majority Practice' in Dismissing Patent Dispute Over Night Vision Technology
Who Got the Work: 16 Lawyers Appointed to BioLab Class Action Litigation
4 minute readLaw Firms Mentioned
Trending Stories
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250