A 21-year-old woman, Centava Dozier, has filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines for alleged negligence that led to another passenger masturbating on a flight next to her and ejaculating in her hair. The case will pit the higher duties of a common carrier against the concept of a superseding intervening act. Notably, this is not the first such attack of this kind — adding to the foreseeability element.
Centava Dozier was on a flight to Los Angeles from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport when the incident occurred. Click here. She is alleging a classic negligence theory of a failure of flight attendants to take steps after they noticed that a man had switched seats. Dozier had fallen asleep early in the flight and woke up to find a man staring at her while masturbating. She immediately found that the man had ejaculated in her hair. She further says that the flight attendants did not respond when she began to cry and ask for help. Another passenger ultimately comforted her. The man was arrested after the flight.
Under common law torts, a common carrier must exercise the highest degree of care for the passengers’ safety and is responsible for the slightest negligence. However, criminal or intentional torts are generally (but not always) treated as superseding intervening causes — cutting off proximate causation. However, some criminal act must be anticipated, particularly by common carriers. Such foreseeability was at the heart of the decision in Brower v. NY Central & HRR (NJ Sup. Ct., 1918) where a railroad was treated as liable for the theft of cider and other goods after an accident with a wagon.
While it is hard to believe, it turns out the airlines have had to deal with such sexual assault in past flights with sleeping women, including a recent similar attack by a Northwest Airlines employee, here.
This history and the alleged unresponsiveness of the flight attendants may be enough to get this to a jury. The grotesque nature of the attack is likely to have a pronounced impact on a jury.
For the full story, click here
rafflaw: Valery Plames 15 minutes was up long ago. I think her book went to number 3,000 on Amazon within a week.
rafflaw: you are a total dunderhead. I think you actually believe some of what you post and that is a problem for delusional people.
JT:
I am usually as liberal as they come in interpreting the duty relationship of common carriers, but how could anyone anticipate this scenario simply by someone changing their seats. Regardless of the flight attendants reactions, they could not have prevented the battery, and how would anyone differentiate the harm flowing from the battery and that suffered the victim by the airline employees failure to remedy the event after the fact? To me this is a classic superceding and intervening act breaking any causation but more importantly I see no breach of duty since what reasonable person would deem this foreseeable?
There seems to be some confusion over the Valerie Plame outing. Yes, outing is the correct word. The CIA asked for the investigation so they thought it was an outing of a CIA covert agent. The U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald thought it was an outing of a covert CIA agent and the jury found Scooter guilty of lying to the FBI and Grand Jury about his actions surrounding the outing. Armitage was the first to out Valerie Plame, but not the only one to out Valerie Plame. As to msnbc bs and Patty C’s thoughts that Joe Wilson contributed to the outing of his wife, your theories are not substantiated by the facts. Once again, the CIA and U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald believed that Plame was a covert agent and was outed improperly. The facts also show that it was an intentional outing not an inadvertent act. Armitage was one of several people who outed her. Even if Armitage did it by accident, the other actors in the drama were doing it intentionally for political purposes. People may have died when her network was rolled up after the outing. That is why it is a big deal.
re: flight masturbation.
Was Keith Olbermann on that flight?
“Plame outing? Now that is a joke. How do you “out” a CIA employee whose husband was the biggest name dropper in Washington DC and now the biggest in New Mexico!
What was that place Joe Wilson posted his wife’s name where Novak put two and two together? Oh, ya, WHO’S WHO!”
Thus proving that Armitage, I believe, leaked it – by ‘inadvertently’ uttering those famous covert-career halting words, which only could have lead Novak to Who’s Who in the first place – “Wilsons’s wife”.
1. Last I checked, being a pervert knows no political boundaries.
2. Did the victim and violator exhibit any behavior before the flight that would indicate that they knew each other? If not … how did the flight attendants not notice that a man was either masturbating, or doing something highly suspicious, near a sleeping woman that he, in all likelihood, did not know?
At the least, does American Airlines allow sexual activity on its flights? If not, shouldn’t that have been enough cause for the flight attendants to see what was going on? I would love to witness that line of deposition questioning, or cross-examination.
3. I’m flying Southwest from now on.
4. Can we get Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC to be an air marshal?
Plame outing? Now that is a joke. How do you “out” a CIA employee whose husband was the biggest name dropper in Washington DC and now the biggest in New Mexico!
What was that place Joe Wilson posted his wife’s name where Novak put two and two together? Oh, ya, WHO’S WHO!
msnbc bs
I am glad tghat you actually googled something. I never said Rush was convicted of anything. I said when he was being investigated by the grand jury in the Plame outing and in the prescription drug and doctor shopping matters he turned to his lawyers for help. The ACLU was not asked, but being the good hearted Liberals, Progressives that they are, offered their assistance on the matter of releasing his private medical records. Of course it was a “liberal hack prosecutor” that was the cause of all his troubles. Tell us why he is a hack prosecutor. Was Patrick Fitzgerald a liberal hack prosecutor? Did the weather finally break down your way???
What crime did Rush get convicted of? I wasn’t much aware of it until you posted it. After googling it it appears he didn’t do anything wrong and never asked for the ACLU help. He was accused of Doctor shopping by a liberal hack prosecutor. Bet this prosecutor, if he was in NY, would be looking for a way to walk away from going after Spitzer, also.
msnbc bs,
Your meds must be working this morning because you actually used my correct name. You cannot pass up the opportunity to use your favorite Limbaugh phrase when responding. What do you have against attorneys? The fact that they will charge people for their expertise and work? The fact that they sometimes convince a judge or a jury that the government’s case is weak or non-existent? Or is it that some attorneys might actually bring out facts and evidence that proves that you have been lied to by your government? Or did you just not get a good result in your latest divorce or workmens comp case? Your mentor, Rush Limbaugh, went running to lawyers when he got into his latest quarrels over the outing of a covert CIA agent and a little problem over prescription drugs. I think that liberal demonic organization called the ACLU might have offered him help with that problem. Why don’t you apply to law school and give it a try. It might give you a whole new perspective on life. It might actually get you into the reality based world.
John, I read your post and I would believe that if this “creep” turned out to be a multi-millionaire Hollywood movie producer willing to pay you a couple million to come up with an excuse that would keep him out of jail or from a conviction of a crime, you would be saying something different, eh?
LOL. attorneys..
rafflw: your Bush Derangement Syndrome has taken over again. Go take your meds.
You’d think Bill Clinton would fly on a private jet instead of traveling commercial.
msnbc bs,
You have changed your name again. Make up your mind! As usual your post leaves me shaking my head. I had forgotten that masturbation was invented by a liberal. If you are such a critic of the judiciary, I would imagine that you were very upset with the judicial outcome of Bush v. Gore in 2001! The reason why George has been committing so many felonies is because he grew up in the “if it feels good do it” society. It felt good for him to skip his reserve/guard duty, so he skipped it. It felt good for him to use cocaine and to drink to excess, so he did it. It felt good for him to drive while intoxicated, so he did it. It felt good for him to spy illegally on Americans, so he did it. It felt good to attack a nation based on lies and be responsible for almost 4,000 American deaths and over 100,000 Iraq citizens, so he did it. Yeah, those Liberals have sure made it tough on the world.
One more thing, you should thank people like Professor Turley who have fought for the protection of everyone’s rights, including good old msnbc bs. Be sure to wash you hands after your nap.
This is what you get when liberals give us a “if it feels good do it” society.
Thanks Johnathan, for all the work you have done over the years bringing us such a sick society via the the courts.
I would like to know how a single liberal sleeps at night.
J.T. wrote:
While it is hard to believe, it turns out the airlines have had to deal with such sexual assault in past flights with sleeping women, including a recent similar attack by a Northwest Airlines employee, here.
**********************
In addition to all the other hassles airline passengers have to deal with, assaults like this should never have to be one of them! This is one more reason I’m glad I can stay OFF airplanes. No one should have to endure such assaults, either by passengers or by airline employees.
JT, off-topic, but quickly, how is Dr Al-Arian doing? is he getting water?
I have tried to find out what happened to this creep after his arrest, but found nothing on his charges or possible resolution of the criminal casse.
Humans!
This is what you get when a freak mutation occurs and hairy apes figure out how to build 747’s.
Our whole lives we live and work in this society and never question that we are the pinnacle of evolution. Well, if we are the pinnacle, it is like being the highest point in the Poconos. Impressive yes, but not to be compared to the 8,000 meter giants in the Himalayas and Karakorum….