Passenger sues Delta over restroom fiasco
Urgent bathroom visit wouldn’t have been issue for white person, he says
When he finally, absolutely couldn’t wait any longer, Kima Hamilton used the lavatory as his Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta home to Milwaukee was waiting on the tarmac for its turn to take off in April.
His potty break took less than 35 seconds, but because attendants had warned he could not do that without the plane losing its place in line, it returned to the gate, everyone was forced to get off and FBI agents took Hamilton aside for questioning.
The incident made news during a time when several incidents of how airlines were treating passengers earlier this year were making national headlines. On Tuesday, Hamilton made a federal case out of it.
In a lawsuit filed in Milwaukee federal court, Hamilton, 40, contends the situation would never have unfolded the way it did if he were white and charges Delta Airlines with racially discriminating against him.
The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. Hamilton is represented by Madison civil rights lawyer Jeff Scott Olson. According to the suit: Hamilton had flown to Atlanta several days earlier for a friend’s 40th birthday. His return flight on April 18 was scheduled to depart at 2:55 p.m. He was in seat 30-C, an aisle seat, for about 15 to 20 minutes when he tried to go to the restroom. He had heard an announcement to remain seated, but he urgently needed to urinate.
He got up and stepped toward the rear lavatory but a flight attendant blocked his path and told him to return to his seat because if went he used the lavatory, the plane would lose its spot in the departure line. He sat back down.
About 10 minutes later, his situation had become an emergency, he told the attendant, and went to the lavatory. When he came out, the attendant said Hamilton needed to speak to the pilot.
Hamilton returned to his seat as the pilot was announcing that the plane would be returning to the gate so a passenger could be removed. It was 2:40 p.m. Once there, a Delta representative came to Hamilton’s seat. A couple, both lawyers from Milwaukee whom he had been talking with, took video.
Hamilton engages the first Delta staff in a conversation but doesn’t immediately follow him off the plane. After a discussion with a second Delta employee, Hamilton voluntarily leaves his seat.
At 3:05, Hamilton saw police cars outside the plane, called his wife and said he thought he was being evicted.
In fact, all of the passengers were forced to deplane with their belongings. In the jetway, the FBI agents asked if they could go and talk. The lawyer who had been sitting near Hamilton accompanied him with the agents and Delta staffers to an empty gate where Hamilton explained what had occurred.
An agent and a Delta representative left then returned about 20 minutes later and said that other passengers told them Hamilton “had maintained his composure throughout the sequence of events,” and so he would not be arrested on charges of interfering with a flight.
But he was still refused service by Delta. He had to buy a ticket on another airline and got back to Milwaukee about 11 p.m. About a week later, he filed a complaint with Delta.
Michael Thomas, a spokesman for Delta, said the company takes any claim of discrimination seriously, but couldn’t discuss specifics of Hamilton’s suit.
“Our flight crews are extensively trained to ensure the safety and security of all customers,” Thomas wrote in an email.
“It is imperative that passengers follow FAA regulations to comply with crew instructions during all phases of flight, especially at the critical points of takeoff and landing, which our findings indicate this customer did not do.
Hamilton’s lawsuit states that “his conduct did not at any time violate any of the provisions of Rule 35(f) of Delta’s Contract of Carriage.”