Court Opinion

ID: 9487667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:23:30.987748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:25.409970
License: Public Domain

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge
with whom EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge, joins dissenting:
In Hodges v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 44 F.3d 334, 343 (5th Cir.1995) (en banc) (Higginbotham, J., dissenting), I explained that I would test the preemptive reach of § 1305(a)(1) of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 as follows:
The first inquiry is whether the claim, with regulatory effect, relates to “rates, routes or services.” 49 U.S.CApp. § 1305(a)(1). If the claim relates to services, then it is preempted unless it also results from “the operation or maintenance of aircraft.” Id. § 1371(q)(l). If there is doubt as to whether the claim results from the operation or maintenance of the aircraft, that doubt is to be resolved in favor of the operation or maintenance category.
*348I am persuaded that the Smiths’ claim is preempted. A claim alleging that an airline negligently failed to prevent a visibly deranged passenger, holding an otherwise valid ticket, from boarding the aircraft relates to boarding procedures, which are inextricably part of providing air travel services. The next inquiry then is whether this claim results from the operation or maintenance of the aircraft. As the majority indicates, “[njeither the alleged failure of America West’s ticket agent to perceive that the hijacker was deranged when she sold him a ticket nor appellants’ other allegations of negligence are part of the operation or maintenance of aircraft.” For me, the analysis ends there, and the correct result is that the Smiths’ claim relates to services and, therefore, is preempted.
The majority suggests that affecting an airline’s ticket selling, training, or security practices is “too tenuous, remote or peripheral” to be preempted by § 1305(a)(1) and has nothing to do with the economic practices regarding boarding. This does not comport with the plain meaning of the term services, and I am not persuaded of the relevance or force of the proffered economic analysis. The regulatory bite of tort laws is direct. I cannot find in the words of the statute a wholesale exception for claims of personal injury nor any exception for tort claims with a contract in the background. The state is enforcing its own standards, policies, and duties, not the obligations of private contract — just as surely as Illinois was regulating an airline service by applying its rules against fraudulent acts to a frequent flier mile program. See American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, — U.S. ——, 115 S.Ct. 817, 130 L.Ed.2d 715 (1995).
I would affirm.