Accord­ing to this Wash­ing­ton Post Arti­cle, the Fly­ing Imams’ law­suit sur­vived a motion to dis­miss yes­ter­day. But the arti­cle does not tell the whole story. In fact, the arti­cle mis­rep­re­sents Judge Montgomery’s deci­sion as an unqual­i­fied vic­tory for CAIR and the Fly­ing Imams. I have read the rul­ing, and offer a brief sum­mary of its effect on the suit.

The deci­sion rules on sev­eral motions:

1. U.S. Air­ways’ Motion to Dismiss
2. U.S. Air­ways’ Motion for Sum­mary Judgment
3. MAC’s Motion to Dismiss
4. Plain­tiffs’ Rule 56(f) Motion
5. Plain­tiffs’ Motion to Strike

I. MAC’s Motion to Dismiss

MAC is the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Air­port Com­mis­sion, a state actor. This is a FRCP 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.

The court denied MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 3 (§1983 claim for 4th Amend­ment vio­la­tions: unrea­son­able search and seizure), rul­ing that Plain­tiffs had ade­quately plead a charge that they had been arrested with­out prob­a­ble cause.

Sim­i­larly, the court denied MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 3 (§1983 claim for 4th Amend­ment vio­la­tions: equal pro­tec­tion), rul­ing that Plain­tiffs had ade­quately plead a charge that they had been dis­crim­i­nated against on the basis of their race or reli­gion. The court found the com­plaint suf­fi­ciently clear to put MAC on ade­quate notice of Plain­tiffs’ claims and the grounds on which they were based.

The court granted MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 3 (§1983 claim for 6th Amend­ment vio­la­tions: right to coun­sel) because Plain­tiffs did not respond to the motion.

The court denied MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 4 (tor­tious fail­ure to ade­quately train) because the motion depended on com­plete dis­missal of Count 3, which was not granted.

The court granted MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 5 (tor­tious false arrest) because it appeared to assert that claim against U.S. Air­ways, but not against MAC. Because the com­plaint did not clearly state a false arrest claim against MAC, the court dis­missed that claim as against MAC.

The court denied MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 10 (vio­la­tion of Min­nesota Gov­ern­ment Data Prac­tices Act) because Plain­tiff Shahin’s alle­ga­tion that she was “afraid to go out in pub­lic” after MAC failed to remove her Social Secu­rity Num­ber from a police report before pub­lish­ing it on the Inter­net was suf­fi­cient to state a claim for emo­tional damages.

The court denied MAC’s motion to dis­miss Count 17 (inva­sion of pri­vacy) for the same rea­son. MAC had asserted that emo­tional dam­ages were insuf­fi­cient to sup­port a claim for inva­sion of pri­vacy, but the court found otherwise.

II. U.S. Air­ways’ Motion to Dismiss

U.S. Air­ways is the air­line. It is not a state actor. This is a FRCP 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.

The court denied U.S. Air­ways’ motion to dis­miss Count 3 (§1983 claim for 4th Amend­ment vio­la­tions: var­i­ous) because, although U.S. Air­ways is not a state actor, it can still be held liable under §1983 if it “jointly engaged with pub­lic offi­cers in the denial of civil rights.” The com­plaint alleged that U.S. Air­ways had jointly engaged in search, seizure, and arrest with the pub­lic offi­cers of MAC. There­fore, the com­plaint suf­fi­ciently stated the claim.

The court denied U.S. Air­ways’ motion to dis­miss Count 5 (tor­tious false arrest). U.S. Air­ways argued that it had not per­formed the arrest (MAC had), and so it could not be liable for false arrest. But the Min­nesota Supreme Court (Min­nesota law con­trols this claim) had ruled that pri­vate actors could be held liable for false arrest if they pro­vide infor­ma­tion to law enforce­ment. There­fore, U.S. Air­ways may be sub­ject to a false arrest claim. U.S. Air­ways also asserted a fed­eral defense under 49 U.S.C. §44941, which gives air car­ri­ers immu­nity from suit for terrorism-​​related vol­un­tary infor­ma­tion dis­clo­sures to law enforce­ment. How­ever, the court found that Plain­tiffs had alleged activ­ity (act­ing in con­cert with MAC, not just pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion) that was not cov­ered by the statute, and denied the motion to dismiss.

The court granted U.S. Air­ways’ motion to dis­miss Count 6 (vio­la­tion of Air Car­rier Accest Act) because it found that the ACAA did not cre­ate a pri­vate right of action. ACAA requires air car­ri­ers to pro­vide access to dis­abled per­sons; Plain­tiff Saded­din alleged that he had been effec­tively denied access because the air­line ignored his blind­ness on the pre­sump­tion that he was fak­ing it. The Act does not explic­itly cre­ate a pri­vate right of action, and the court looked to prece­dent from other cir­cuits to deter­mine that a pri­vate right of action could not be implied.

The court denied U.S. Air­ways’ motion to dis­miss Count 12 (inten­tional inflic­tion of emo­tional dis­tress) because it found that the facts alleged by Plain­tiffs might, if proven true, amount to extreme and out­ra­geous conduct.

III. U.S. Air­ways’ Motion for Sum­mary Judg­ment & Plain­tiffs’ Rule 56(f) Motion

This is a motion for sum­mary judg­ment in favor of U.S. Air­ways on all counts.

The court denied the motion. U.S. Air­ways asserted immu­nity under the Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Act, 49 U.S.C. §44902, which allows air­lines to refuse to board a pas­sen­ger so long as its refusal is not arbi­trary or capri­cious. U.S. Air­ways believed it had pre­sented enough evi­dence by affi­davit to estab­lish that its refusal to board Plain­tiffs was not arbi­trary or capri­cious within the mean­ing of the statute. The court did not answer this ques­tion, because Plain­tiffs had filed a com­pet­ing Rule 56(f) motion. Rule 56(f) allows a party oppos­ing a motion for sum­mary judg­ment to assert by affi­davit that it is unable to prop­erly oppose the motion merely by affi­davits. In other words, Plain­tiff asserted that dis­cov­ery was nec­es­sary before it could ade­quately respond to U.S. Air­ways’ motion for sum­mary judg­ment. The court agreed, so it granted Plain­tiffs’ 56(f) motion and denied U.S. Air­ways’ motion with­out prej­u­dice, which means U.S. Air­ways is free to file for sum­mary judg­ment on the same grounds in the future, pre­sum­ably after some dis­cov­ery has taken place.

U.S. Air­ways also moved for sum­mary judg­ment on the grounds that Plain­tiffs’ state-​​law claims were pre­empted by the Air­line Dereg­u­la­tion Act, 49 U.S.C. §41713(b)(1), which pro­vides that the states may not make leg­is­la­tion or rules “relat­ing to” air­line ser­vices or fares. The court found dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions of the pre­emp­tive effect of the ADA on board­ing prac­tice claims and the mean­ing of the word “ser­vices” under the statute, but did not decide one way or the other on pre­emp­tion. Instead, the court found prece­dent indi­cat­ing that deter­min­ing the scope of “ser­vices” in the con­text of alle­ga­tions of racial or reli­gious bias in board­ing prac­tices required some dis­cov­ery. There­fore, the court denied the motion with­out prejudice.

IV. Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike

U.S. Air­ways, after fil­ing its motion for sum­mary judg­ment, learned of a case from the 9th Cir­cuit that sup­ported its posi­tion with an addi­tional, implied pre­emp­tion argu­ment, and informed the court of the case. Plain­tiffs responded with their own let­ter sug­gest­ing that the case was dis­tin­guish­able. U.S. Air­ways responded to Plain­tiffs’ response, assert­ing that the case tended to sup­port their inter­pre­ta­tion of the law. Plain­tiffs moved to strike this last let­ter as an unso­licited sup­ple­men­tal mem­o­ran­dum of law, barred by a local court rule. The court granted the motion to strike the let­ter, assert­ing that U.S. Air­ways could not cor­rect its fail­ure to brief the implied pre­emp­tion issue in an unso­licited mem­o­ran­dum of law.

In sum, the rul­ings are gen­er­ally pro-​​Plaintiffs, but that is to be expected at this stage of the game. Notably, the court left the door open for U.S. Air­ways to move for sum­mary judg­ment on the same grounds after a bit of dis­cov­ery. The rul­ing is by no means a con­clu­sive vic­tory for anyone.

Tiny Update: It is impor­tant to note that the most inter­est­ing aspect of this case, the claim against var­i­ous John Doe defen­dants, is no longer an issue: Plain­tiffs vol­un­tar­ily with­drew those charges early in the case when they filed an amended complaint.