Overweight Airline Passenger Unsuccessful with Racial Discrimination Claim

Overlawyered.com has a story about an overweight passenger who sued Southwest Airlines when it required her to buy two seats.

What's interesting about the case is that the passenger did not sue for disability discrimination, but instead brought a racial discrimination claim. Confused?

Well, apparently the passenger claimed that the airline enforced its policy in a racially discriminatory manner.  However, according to the Boston Globe, "Southwest employees didn't hit or use abusive language against Thompson. 'All they had is the tone,' said her husband, Robert Thompson."

Ms. Thompson, the passenger, for her own part was no angel:

Joel Drake, a Southwest employee, testified that Thompson [the passenger] herself had "accused him of being a 'motherf------ racist pig' and wished that his family would die from cancer when he tried to explain the company's policy to her. ...Thompson testified that Drake was bullying her and she felt scared, so words were her only way to fight back. She said she felt cornered and powerless."

I guess it is really hard to emphathize with either person in this case, but it does seem the jury came to the right verdict when it found against the plaintiff since the customer-of-size policy was being applied on a neutral basis.

On the other hand, whether such "two seat policies" for overweight individuals are otherwise unlawfully discriminatory under the ADA is unlikely as being merely obese is generally not considered a disability for purposes of the ADA.  That being said, some courts and the EEOC hold out the possibility that a morbidly obese person might qualify in some circumstances for ADA protection.

PS