By Alexandra Skores
American Airlines has replaced its legal team defending a Texas lawsuit after a filing this week blamed a 9-year-old Texas girl for allegedly being secretly recorded while using an aircraft bathroom.
In an email to The Dallas Morning News, attorneys for the plaintiffs at Lewis & Llewellyn LLP said it was notified on Friday that Kelly Hart & Hallman, LLP would be representing the Fort Worth-based airline in the case.
“As a result of the intense media and public backlash surrounding the outrageous allegation, we are not surprised to learn that American Airlines fired its law firm,” said Paul Llewellyn, an attorney representing the young girl and her family. “With the benefit of this new legal representation, we hope that American Airlines will now take a fresh look at the case and finally take some measure of responsibility for what happened to our client. Otherwise, we are very confident that a Texas jury will do the right thing and hold American Airlines responsible.”
American Airlines confirmed that it has replaced its legal team on the case. A representative for Fort Worth-based Kelly Hart & Hallman was not immediately available for comment.
Families of at least two minors sued American Airlines after it became public that a flight attendant for the company had been caught taping a cell phone camera to the toilet seat in a lavatory on a plane and directing the children to use it. Investigators later found photos of children who were 7, 9, 11 and 14 at the time on an iCloud account, law enforcement officials alleged.
This week, American called a legal filing in the case an “error” after it blamed the young girl for the incident. The defense originally stated, “any injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained” by the plaintiff “were proximately caused by (the) plaintiff’s own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by (the) plaintiff’s use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”
A new lawsuit was filed without placing blame on the child.
“Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing,” an American Airlines spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week. “The included defense is not representative of our airline and we have directed it be amended this morning. We do not believe this child is at fault and we take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously. Our core mission is to care for people — and the foundation of that is the safety and security of our customers and team.”
In January, the flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, 36, of Charlotte, N.C., was arrested for allegedly filming and taking photos of children while working for the Fort Worth-based air carrier.
A 14-year-old girl and her family also filed a lawsuit against American and Thompson after the girl took a photo of the cellphone taped to a toilet seat lid with stickers only crew members would have. The incident occurred in September when the girl and her family were traveling from Charlotte to Boston. She discovered the phone after she had already used the toilet.
Thompson hasn’t worked for the airline since his arrest.
Thompson is charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor, according to the Department of Justice. He pleaded not guilty to the charges this week.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
