Consumer protection research including all manner of deceptive or disputed practices
Status: Pending.
Summary: Federal regulation favors private resolution of disputes between passengers and airlines. But Southwest’s “class waiver” disallows passengers from gathering together with a single set of lawyers and experts for efficient, cost-effective group resolution of their complaints.
Complaint. Answer. Reply. Surreply.
Status: Pending.
Summary: Governing regulation requires an airline to provide the exact price for a passenger’s first and second checked bag within the text of an eticket confirmation email, but Alaska did not do so. Furthermore, the regulation requires bag allowance and price information in a booking summary page, but again Alaska did not. Meanwhile Alaska’s Manage Trip page provided an incorrect statement of baggage benefits and fees.
Complaint. Answer. Reply. Surreply.
Status: Pending.
Summary: The American Airlines Business Extra site misrepresented carrier surcharges as “tax” in violation of governing regulation and prior DOT consent decrees. Furthermore, the site listed “approx” charges rather than the exact amount to be paid. And contrary to governing regulation, the site entirely omitted carrier surcharges from initial fare quotes.
Revisiting Barlow’s Misplaced Optimism, Symposium for John Perry Barlow, 18 Duke L. & Tech. Rev. 97.
As part of Duke Technology Law Review‘s Symposium for John Perry Barlow, I reflected on the perspective of early Internet luminary John Perry Barlow, the vision he offered, and what I see as the most promising sources of accountability for online behavior. My piece begins:
Barlow’s A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace calls for a “civilization of the mind in cyberspace,” and he says it will be “more humane and fair” than what governments have created. Barlow’s vision is unapologetically optimistic, easily embraced by anyone who longs for better times to come. Yet twenty years later, it’s easy to see some important respects in which reality fell short of his vision. Alongside the Internet’s many pluses are clickbait, scams, hacks, and all manner of privacy violations. Ten thousand hours of cat videos may be delightful, but they’re no civilization of the mind. With a bit of hindsight, Barlow’s techno-utopianism looks as stilted as other utopianism—and equally far removed from reality.
Beyond being overly optimistic about how perfectly the ‘net would unfold, Barlow was also needlessly skeptical of plausible institutions to bring improvements. He writes: “The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule.” But the moral suasion—and practical effectiveness—of the Golden Rule presupposes participants of roughly equal power and status. It is no small feat to meaningfully consider what Joe User might want from Mega Social Network if the tables were turned and Joe owned the goliath. As a practical matter, any claim a user has against a goliath requires state institutions to adjudicate and enforce. When Barlow wrote A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, tech goliaths were much smaller. Plus, the Internet’s early users were in a certain sense more sophisticated than the mainstream users who eventually joined. So the gap from little to big was much narrower then, arguably making governments less important in that era. But as the big get bigger and as the Internet attracts average users who lack the special sophistication of early adopters, governments play key roles—adjudicating disputes, enforcing contracts and beyond.
Flowers, et al. v. Twilio, Inc. is a consumer class action alleging that Twilio recorded phone calls and text messages for its customers Handy Technologies and Homejoy and text messages for its customer Trulia, without the consent of all parties to those communications, in violation of California privacy law.
The parties reached a settlement which received final approval by the Court on June 11, 2019. Persons included in the settlement will be eligible to receive a portion of the settlement fund based on whether their recorded communication(s) involved a phone call or only text messages.
Payments to Class Members will be distributed pro rata based on the type of recorded communication. Each Settlement Class Member who had only a text message recorded by Defendant will receive one share, while each Settlement Class Member who had at least one telephone call recorded by Defendant will receive eight shares. The value of one share will be determined by dividing the net settlement fund by the total number of shares allocated to the Settlement Class. The Settlement Administrator estimates that a Class Member with a recorded phone call will receive $64.30 and a Class Member with only a recorded text message will receive $8.04. This is only an estimate and may change as the Settlement awards are finalized. if the Settlement administrator has the correct mailing address for a Class Member, that Class Member will automatically receive his or her share of the Settlement.
Case documents (including Complaint and Class Notice) are available at the settlement website, californiarecordingsettlement.com.
Checks were first mailed out in September 2019 and those expired on December 16, 2019.
In February 2020, the Court approved re-issuing checks to settlement class members who did not cash the first round of settlement checks in 2019. Those checks were re-issued on March 10, 2020 and will expire on June 8, 2020.
If you received one of these re-issued checks, you must cash it before June 8, 2020 to ensure you get your share of the settlement. After June 8, 2020, any uncashed settlement checks will be voided and cancelled.
Do not attempt to cash any settlement checks after the void or expiration date listed on the check, or you may be subject to bank fees. If you still have an uncashed settlement check issued in 2019, you should not attempt to cash it.
If you have any questions about a re-issued settlement check, you can email or call Class Counsel at recordingsettlement@gbdhlegal.com or 1-800-531-4446. You can also contact the Settlement Administrator at Flowers v. Twilio Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 404103, Louisville, KY 40233-4103.
The Court has authorized notice to be sent to class members. Class members should receive an email on Saturday, July 21, 2018, with the subject line: “Notice of Class Action Settlement – Refunds for American Airlines Checked Bag Fees.” If you’ve flown on American in the past six years and get this email, you should read it since you may be eligible for a refund. The email includes a class notice and claim form. The case documents (including Claim Form and Class Notice) are available at the settlement website, aabaggagefeesettlement.com.
If you have any questions, you may contact Class Counsel: Linda M. Dardarian, Byron Goldstein, and Raymond Wendell at AAcheckedbags@gbdhlegal.com or 1-866-762-8575, or Benjamin Edelman.
Passengers have every reason to record airline staff and onboard events–documenting onboard disputes (such as whether a passenger is in fact disruptive or a service animal disobedient), service deficiencies (perhaps a broken seat or inoperational screen), and controversial remarks from airline personnel (like statements of supposed rules, which not match actual contract provisions). For the largest five US airlines, no contract provision–general tariff, conditions of carriage, or fare rules–prohibits such recordings. Yet airline staff widely tell passengers that they may not record–citing “policies” passengers couldn’t reasonably know and certainly didn’t agree to in the usual contract sense. (For example, United’s policy is a web page not mentioned in the online purchase process. American puts its anti-recording policy in its inflight magazine, where passengers only learn it once onboard.) If passengers refuse to comply, airline staff have threatened all manner of sanctions including denial of transport and arrest. In one incident in July 2016, a Delta gate agent even assaulted a 12-year-old passenger who was recording her remarks.
In a Petition for Rulemaking filed this week with the US Department of Transportation, Mike Borsetti and I ask DOT to affirm that passengers have the right to record what they lawfully see and hear on and around aircraft. We explain why such recordings are in the public interest, and we present the troubling experiences of passengers who have tried to record but have been punished for doing so. We conclude with specific proposed provisions to protect passenger rights.
One need not look far to see the impact of passenger recordings. When United summoned security officers who assaulted passenger David Dao, who had done nothing worse than peacefully remain in the seat he had paid for, five passenger recordings provided the crucial proof to rebut the officers’ false claim that Dao was “swinging his arms up and down with a closed fist,” then “started flailing and fighting” as he was removed (not to mention United CEO Oscar Munoz’s false contention that Dao was “disruptive and belligerent”). Dao and the interested public are fortunate that video disproved these allegations. But imagine if United had demanded that other passengers onboard turn off their cameras before security officers boarded, or delete their recordings afterward and prove that they had done so, all consistent with passengers experiences we report in our Petition for Rulemaking. Had United made such demands, the false allegations would have gone unchallenged and justice would not have been done. Hence our insistence that recordings are proper even–indeed, especially–without the permission of the airline staff, security officers, and others who are recorded.
Our filing:
Petition for Rulemaking: Passenger Right to Record
DOT docket with public comment submission form