CHICAGO — A federal judge has grounded portions of a class action challenging United Airlines’ refusal to provide refunds for passengers who saw their travel plans scuttled by COVID-19 complications.
Named plaintiffs Jacob Rudolph, Mark Hansen and Jason Buffer sued United, alleging the airline’s Conditions of Carriage entitled passengers to refunds for canceled flights and not just credits for future travel.
The plaintiffs are represented in the case by attorneys Steve W. Berman, Daniel J. Kurowski and Whitney K. Siehl, of the firm of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, of Chicago.
| Anna Zvereva, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In an opinion issued Feb. 12, U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin said involuntary cancellations — when the carrier grounds a flight — can be attributed to unforeseen consequences, a schedule change or irregular operations. Under the contract, cancellations from unforeseen events - known in legal terminology as a force majeure event - result in passengers being given travel credits, but not a refund. Under the other two conditions, passengers can request a refund when they are not rebooked within a set timeframe.
The plaintiff’s said United should abide by U.S. Department of Transportation statements regarding refunds. One, issued before the pandemic, said all airline passengers should be given refunds if they cancel a trip following a flight cancellation. A second, issued in April 2020, was an enforcement notice in response to complaints from customers who were offered only travel credits. USDOT issued a second enforcement notice in May 2020 stating “airlines have an obligation to provide a refund to a ticketed passenger when the carrier cancels or significantly changes the passenger’s flight, and the passenger chooses not to accept an alternative offered by the carrier.”
On March 16, Rudolph sought a refund for his April 4 round trip from Minneapolis to Hilton Head, S.C. United offered only a rebooking or credit, then ultimately cancelled flights on his itinerary.
Buffer had round trip tickets from New York to Athens, Greece, on March 19. Four days prior to departure, United canceled at least one leg of the tip and offered a rebooking or a full cancellation with flight credits. United declined Buffer’s request for a full refund.
Hansen used Expedia to book a trip from Vancouver, B.C., to Costa Rica starting March 28. After United made several itinerary changes and ultimately canceled the entire trip on March 26, neither the airline nor Expedia would issue a refund. United asked Durkin to stay Hansen’s claim because of an arbitration clause in Expedia’s user agreement, but Durkin said federal regulations prohibit airlines from invoking arbitration, even as a third-party beneficiary.
With that settled, Durkin turned to United’s motion to dismiss the entire complaint. United argued the cancellations were beyond its control, pointing to federal travel warnings, a World Health Organization pandemic declaration and orders specific to the plaintiffs, such as a stay-at-home order in Minnesota and Costa Rica’s border closure.
While Durkin agreed with the plaintiffs about the negative consequences of overly broad applications of the force majeure clause, he said United sufficiently argued a connection between coronavirus response and its cancellations.
Durkin said dismissal of Rudolph’s complaint, without prejudice, was appropriate because he initiated the cancellation. He agreed to dismiss Hansen’s complaint, with prejudice, with respect to his Costa Rica flights.
“Costa Rica was Mr. Hansen’s destination, not a layover,” Durkin wrote, “and no reasonable air carrier would agree to transport an American citizen and resident under those circumstances, where he would not be permitted entry on arrival.”
With regard to Buffer’s situation, as with Hansen’s other flights, Durkin said, “whether the cancellations at issue occurred because of economic considerations, or were due to restrictions and warnings related to the pandemic, can only be answered with discovery.”
He would not dismiss those claims.
Durkin agreed with United’s position the USDOT notices were guidance that doesn’t supersede its contract, and said the plaintiffs “apparently abandoned their arguments regarding” those statements. He also agreed United Airlines Holdings should be dismissed from the complaint, as it isn’t a party to the contract the plaintiffs challenged.
The plaintiffs have until March 5 to amend their complaint.
United has been represented by attorneys Patricia Brown Holmes and Sondra A. Hemeryck, of the firm of Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP, of Chicago.