Court Opinion

ID: 9377786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-08 19:00:36.195387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:16.539409
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10692        Document: 00516669327             Page: 1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                         United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                         Fifth Circuit

                                                                                       FILED
                                                                                     March 8, 2023
                                       No. 22-10692
                                                                                     Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                          Clerk

   Leia Montgomery; Kristen Meghan Kelly,

                                                                  Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                            versus

   Delta Air Lines, Incorporated,

                                                                  Defendant—Appellee.

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 3:21-CV-2715

   Before Wiener, Stewart, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         This appeal arises from the district court’s dismissal of Leia
   Montgomery and Kristen Kelly’s (collectively “Appellants”) lawsuit against
   Delta Air Lines (“Delta”) on preemption grounds. Because Appellants’
   breach-of-contract claim does not qualify for the Wolens exception and their
   remaining state-law claims are preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act
   (the “Deregulation Act”), we AFFIRM.

         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10692        Document: 00516669327              Page: 2       Date Filed: 03/08/2023

                                          No. 22-10692

                                  I.      Background
               A.     Mandatory Masking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
           The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were widespread, rupturing
   through nearly every industry, domestically and abroad. Few industries were
   affected more than public transportation and commercial air travel because
   they are predicated on close contact for long durations. World health leaders
   eventually determined that the spread of COVID-19 could be mitigated by
   wearing a mask and maintaining physical distance from others. Soon
   thereafter, the President of the United States promulgated an executive order
   which required commercial airline companies to implement masking and
   social distancing policies in accordance with the Center for Disease Control
   and Prevention’s (the “CDC”) guidelines.1
           Shortly after the President’s executive order, the CDC issued an order
   requiring individuals to “wear masks over the mouth and nose when traveling
   on conveyances into and within the United States.”2 The CDC’s order came
   on the heels of the Department of Homeland Security’s directive to the
   Transportation Security Administration to aid “the CDC in the enforcement
   of any orders or other requirements necessary to . . . mitigate the spread of
   COVID-19.”3 This string of government decisions serves as the backdrop
   for the instant appeal.

           1
            See Exec. Order 13998, Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International
   Travel, 86 Fed. Reg. 7205 (Jan. 21, 2021).
           2
             See CDC, Order Under Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act, Requirement for
   Persons to Wear Masks While on Conveyances and at Transportation Hubs, 86 Fed. Reg. 8025,
   8026 (Feb. 3, 2021).
           3
              See DHS, Determination of a National Emergency Requiring Actions to Protect the
   Safety of Americans Using and Employed (Jan. 27, 2021).

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                                            No. 22-10692

          B.      Appellants’ Attempt to Board Delta Flights Without Masks4
                                  1.         Leia Montgomery
           Montgomery carries signed medical documentation showing that she
   suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”) and claustrophobia.
   Her documentation explains that her diagnoses comport with the standards
   set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her disorder renders her unable
   to wear a conventional mask, so she instead puts on a face shield, hat, and
   scarf when travelling.
           On February 20, 2021, Montgomery tried to complete the check-in
   process for her flight with Delta. She wore her usual face shield, hat, and scarf
   and gave the Delta gate agents medical documents proving her disability. The
   gate agents called over an emergency physician to evaluate whether her
   documentation entitled her to wear her attire instead of a mask over her
   mouth and nose. The physician informed her that her disabilities did not
   qualify her for maskless travel, and Delta refused to allow her to board.
   Notably, Montgomery alleges that Delta also put her on its no-fly list when
   she attempted to accommodate the mask mandate by putting her scarf over
   her mask and face, like a veil. She asserts that this added to her
   embarrassment and trauma.
                                       2.      Kristen Kelly
           Kelly is a United States Airforce veteran who carries medical records
   explaining how masks cause her body to produce a cardiac arrhythmia
   response. Her disability, like Montgomery’s, also stems from a PTSD
   diagnosis. Delta preapproved Kelly to fly without a mask before her March

           4
              While Appellants sue Delta together in the instant appeal, the events giving rise
   to this suit occurred at two different times. Montgomery was denied entry on her flight in
   February 2021 and Kelly in March 2021.

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   2021 flight. Additionally, in preparation for her flight, she provided Delta
   with a negative COVID-19 test. Despite all of this, she was greeted with
   skepticism by the Delta gate agents at check in and was ushered to a
   telemedicine physician for a determination whether her medical disability
   permitted maskless travel.
          The physician asked Kelly to provide the basis of her PTSD diagnosis,
   which required her to share details of a sexual assault she suffered while
   serving overseas. This disclosure occurred in front of the other passengers on
   her intended flight because Delta deboarded the plane to resolve her masking
   situation. She maintains that this invasion of privacy led to great
   embarrassment and added to her traumatic experience.
                           C.      District Court Proceedings
          Appellants sued Delta for multiple violations of state law, including
   breach of contract, public disclosure of private facts, and intentional infliction
   of emotional distress (“IIED”) or negligent infliction of emotional distress
   (“NIED”). They also sought declaratory relief under the Air Carrier and
   Access Act (“ACAA”). Delta moved to dismiss the suit under Rule 12(b)(6).
   Appellants then filed an amended complaint, which prompted Delta to file
   another motion to dismiss. Ultimately, the district court dismissed
   Appellants’ claims with prejudice.
          First, the district court stated that the Deregulation Act preempted
   Appellants’ breach-of-contract claims, and that they failed to establish that
   they qualified for the Wolens exception.5 Second, it explained that their IIED
   and NIED claims were preempted by the Deregulation Act, Federal Aviation

          5
              See Am. Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U.S. 219, 228–232 (1995) (permitting
   plaintiffs to circumvent the Deregulation Act when they identify specific contractual
   obligations that create a self-imposed undertaking by the airline carrier).

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   Act (“FAA”), and ACAA. Regarding Appellants’ emotional distress claims,
   the district court held that it would dismiss them even if they were not
   preempted because Appellants failed to state a claim for which relief could be
   granted. Appellants timely appealed.
          On appeal, Appellants ask this court to consider whether: (1) the
   Wolens exception applies to their breach-of-contract claim; (2) the
   Deregulation Act preempts their invasion of privacy (public disclosure of
   private facts) claim; and (3) the FAA, Deregulation Act, and the ACAA
   preempt their IIED and NIED claims, or either of them. They also ask that
   we consider any of these claims on their merits if we hold that any of them
   are not preempted.
                             II.     Standard of Review
          We review a district court’s decision on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion de
   novo. Ferguson v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon Corp., 802 F.3d 777, 780 (5th Cir. 2015).
   “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual
   matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”
   Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2007).
                                     III. Discussion
               A.       Appellants Do Not Qualify for the Wolens Exception
          Appellants assert that Delta’s contract of carriage6 (“the Contract”)
   created a self-imposed obligation by providing that “Delta will make every
   effort to accommodate a Person with a Disability and will not refuse to
   transport a person solely based on the person’s disability, except as permitted
   or required by law.” Appellants maintain that, by denying them entry onto

          6
              Delta’s contract of carriage stipulates that Georgia law governs all disputes.

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   their flights, Delta violated the express terms of the Contract, and that this
   violation qualifies them for the Wolens exception.
          Delta contends that Appellants simply cherry-picked language from
   the Contract without recognizing other potentially contradictory provisions.
   It explains that the Contract gives Delta broad discretion to deny passengers
   entry on to a flight when it reasonably believes that denial is necessary to
   protect the passenger, its crew, or its other passengers. Delta thus, maintains
   that the district court correctly dismissed Appellants’ claims. We agree.
          The Deregulation Act’s preemption provision prevents States from
   enacting or enforcing “a law, regulation, or other provision having the force
   and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of an air carrier.” Onoh
   v. Nw. Airlines, Inc., 613 F.3d 596, 599 (5th Cir. 2010) (citing 49
   U.S.C. § 41713(b)(1)). The Supreme Court has generally interpreted this
   provision broadly. Id. To that end, the Court has explained that state
   common law actions that have “a connection with or reference to” airline
   services are preempted unless the connection is “too tenuous, remote, or
   peripheral.” Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 384, 390
   (1992) (citation omitted). This court has had the opportunity to interpret
   “services” under the Deregulation Act on multiple occasions:
              Elements of the air carrier service bargain include
              items such as ticketing, boarding procedures,
              provision of food and drink, and baggage handling, in
              addition to the transportation itself. These matters are
              all appurtenant and necessarily included with the
              contract of carriage between the passenger or shipper
              and the airline. It is these [contractual] features of air
              transportation that we believe Congress intended to
              de-regulate as ‘services’ and broadly to protect from
              state regulation.

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   Onoh, 613 F.3d at 599–600 (alteration in original) (citing Hodges v. Delta
   Airlines, Inc., 44 F.3d 334, 336 (5th Cir. 1995) (en banc)).
          In Wolens, the Supreme Court carved out an exception to the
   Deregulation Act’s preemptive effect for the “adjudication of routine
   breach-of-contract claims.” 513 U.S. at 232. The Court explained that the
   “[Deregulation Act’s] preemption clause . . . stops States from imposing
   their own substantive standards with respect to rates, routes, or services, but
   not from affording relief to a party who claims and proves that an airline
   dishonored a term the airline itself stipulated.” Id. at 232–33. This court
   analyzes Wolens claims with a two-pronged test: “1) the claim alleged only
   concerns a self-imposed obligation; and 2) no enlargement or enhancement
   of the contract occurs based on state laws or policies external to the
   agreement.” Onoh, 613 F.3d at 600. When a plaintiff fails to satisfy the first
   prong, we need not analyze the second. See id. (declining to reach the second
   prong when the “case does not involve the airline’s ‘self-imposed
   undertaking’”).
          Here, Appellants do not qualify for the Wolens exception because they
   have not established that Delta violated a “self-imposed obligation.” On its
   face, Appellants’ argument is straightforward: The Contract provides that
   Delta will accommodate disabled persons and explains that it would not deny
   services to those with qualifying disabilities. Appellants thus claim that Delta
   violated the Contract by refusing services to them. This argument, however,
   fails to account for other provisions in the Contract that offer context on the
   legal permissibility of Delta’s actions. For example, Rule 7 of the Contract,
   entitled “Refusal to Transport,” provides that:
              Whenever necessary to comply with any law,
              regulation or government directive or request; or when
              advisable in Delta’s sole discretion due to weather or
              other conditions beyond Delta’s control

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                                               ...
                Delta may refuse to transport any passenger, or may
                remove any passenger from its aircraft, when refusal to
                transport or removal of the passenger is reasonably
                necessary in Delta’s sole discretion for the passenger’s
                comfort or safety, for the comfort or safety of other
                passengers or Delta employees[.]
   By its terms, nothing in the Refusal to Transport clause prevents its
   enforcement against those with disabilities. Instead, Delta expressly
   broadened Rule 7’s enforcement to instances when it is “reasonably
   necessary in [its] sole discretion.” As to them, Appellants do not challenge
   Rule 7’s validity, although they do take issue with inconsistencies in its
   application.7 Rather, they assert that the mere inclusion of the
   Accommodation clause allows them to benefit from the Wolens exception
   because that language—in a vacuum—proves Delta violated its own terms.
           Essentially, Appellants ask this court to only pay attention to the
   language they identified in support of their claim. However, prevailing
   contract law principles and Georgia state law require us to look to the entire
   contract when discerning whether a party has breached it. See Horwitz v.
   Weil, 569 S.E.2d 515, 516 (Ga. 2002) (explaining that Georgia law requires
   contracts to be considered as a whole, giving effect to each provision to
   harmonize them, and rejecting any construction that renders portions of the
   contractual      language      meaningless).       After     considering       both     the
   Accommodation and Refusal to Transport provisions, we conclude that
   Delta did not breach the Contract by merely exercising its discretion to
   enforce one clause over another. On that point, Appellants do not cite any

           7
             Appellants highlight Delta’s inconsistency in applying Rule 7 as grounds for
   holding in their favor. But Rule 7 is discretionary and depends on the circumstances of each
   individual flight.

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   law or language in the Contract compelling Delta to defer to the
   Accommodation clause over the Refusal to Transport provision.
          Absent legal support that enforcing one section of a contract over
   another constitutes a breach, Appellants fail to prove that Delta breached the
   Contract. This is especially true when, as here, they have provided no other
   evidence that Delta prevented entry “solely based on” Appellants’
   respective disabilities. Because Appellants have not demonstrated that Delta
   breached a self-imposed obligation, they do not qualify for the Wolens
   exception, and the Deregulation Act preempts their breach-of-contract
   claim. See Onoh, 613 F.3d at 600.
                 B.     Appellants’ Remaining Claims are Preempted
          Appellants also assert that the district court incorrectly held that their
   invasion of privacy and IIED and/or NIED claims were preempted by the
   Deregulation Act, FAA, and ACAA. They assert that these statutes do not
   preempt state tort claims unrelated to “services.” They contend that Delta’s
   harassing behavior is the basis for their causes of action and aver that Delta’s
   behavior does not fall under “services” as contemplated by the Deregulation
   Act. We disagree.
          In Onoh we provided a non-exhaustive list of what qualifies as
   “services” under the Deregulation Act: “ticketing, boarding procedures,
   provision of food and drink, and baggage handling, in addition to the
   transportation itself.” Onoh, 613 F.3d at 599 (quoting Hodges, 44 F.3d at 336).
   In addition to providing that list, Onoh is especially relevant here because, the
   plaintiff in that case, also brought a state-law IIED claim against an airline
   provider. This court determined that the Deregulation Act preempted that
   claim because the “question of whether Onoh suffered an IIED when a
   Northwest agent prohibited her from boarding a flight on the grounds that
   the State Department would not permit Onoh to travel clearly [fell] within

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   this definition of airline services.” Id. at 600. The panel in that case also
   rejected Onoh’s argument that her claim was too “tenuous, remote, or
   peripheral” to Northwest’s provision of services because it only addressed
   “the manner in which she was refused service rather than the fact that service
   was refused.” Id. We explained that “Northwest’s decision to deny Onoh
   boarding cannot be divorced from its stated reasons for denying her
   boarding.” Id.
          Here, Appellants’ IIED and invasion-of-privacy claims are preempted
   by the Deregulation Act because they clearly fall within the statute’s
   definition of “services.” Montgomery allegedly suffered IIED during the
   boarding process as she attempted to convince the Delta gate agents that she
   was exempt from wearing a mask. Likewise, Kelly alleged that Delta agents
   invaded her privacy when she was forced to deboard the plane and explain
   the basis of her PTSD in front of the Delta flight crew and her fellow
   passengers. To the extent Kelly suffered a potential IIED claim, it would also
   have stemmed from the same incident. Each of these events transpired
   during the boarding process and both Appellants were ultimately denied
   transportation by Delta. Like in Onoh, Delta’s decision not to provide
   transportation to Appellants is enough for us to hold that the Deregulation
   Act preempts their claims. Our precedent makes clear that boarding and
   transportation are undeniably “services” under the Deregulation Act. Onoh,
   613 F.3d at 599. Moreover, Appellants’ interactions with the Delta gate
   agents are not substitutes for “the fact that service was refused.” Id. at 600.
   Therefore, the district court correctly dismissed Appellants’ claims on
   preemption grounds.
          Because the Deregulation Act preempts all of Appellants’ state-law
   tort claims, we need not address whether the FAA and ACAA do the same.
   Furthermore, we decline to reach the merits of Appellants’ IIED and
   invasion-of-privacy claims because of their preempted status.

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                            IV.    Conclusion
         For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal
   of Appellants’ claims as preempted by the Deregulation Act.

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