A Delta Air Lines passenger says she suffered a ‘serious’ shoulder injury after a flight attendant pushed a loaded beverage cart into her several times during an international flight from Paris to New York JFK.
Gail Hamilton of Pinellas, Florida, is suing Delta for unspecified damages after she filed her lawsuit against the airline in a New York court earlier this month, accusing the flight attendant and Delta of negligence.
Hamilton claims she has been left with permanent injuries and is still unable to perform her normal everyday activities following the accident more than two years ago during Delta flight DL263 on June 21, 2022.
The four-page complaint against the Atlanta-based carrier alleges that a flight attendant left Hamilton with “severe and permanent” injuries after she was struck “multiple times” with a loaded beverage cart that the flight attendant was pushing down the aisle.
Specifically, Hamilton says the cart struck her right shoulder and surrounding area, which has resulted in her seeking ongoing medical care for her injuries.
Delta Air Lines has responded to requests for comment about this lawsuit, but its attorneys have already responded to the claim, telling a New York district court that it completely denies the allegations made against Hamilton.
In fact, Delta’s lawyers say that Hamilton’s were caused solely by her “own culpable and negligent conduct” and that Delta and its flight attendants didn’t do anything wrong or behave negligently.
The lawsuit certainly raises an interesting question over how much care flight attendants should take when they are pushing or pulling a fully loaded metal cart up or down an airplane aisle.
There’s a general assumption that passengers should avoid sticking body parts in the aisle at any point of a flight, especially if they see that a beverage or meal cart is underway.
No matter how much care flight attendants take, however, accidentally knocking a cart into an armrest or even a rogue foot that is poking into the aisle is a fairly common occurrence.
If every passenger were to seek damages for this type of minor incident, then airlines would be battling lawsuits left, right, and center. That’s perhaps the reason why Delta’s attorneys are taking such a firm stance on this claim and are not only refuting Hamilton’s allegations but placing the blame for the injuries she sustained on her.
Interestingly, Hamilton is pursuing a legal claim for negligence under US law, although she also has the option to seek damages under Article 17 of the Montreal Convention, which gives passengers on international flights the right to compensation for injuries sustained during a flight.
Generally speaking, claims made using the Montreal Convention place a lot of responsibility on airlines to prove that they were not at fault and that it was the passenger’s own negligence that caused them to be injured.
If an airline can’t persuade a court that the passenger was negligent then they’ll normally be held liable for a Article 17 claim.
“Multiple times” she was struck by the cart. Wow, I’m guessing that the flight attendant backed up and rammed her several times. One might think that after the first bang, the woman would move her body in. The carts are narrower than the aisle. I’m betting that this is a “deep pockets” issue from a disgruntled passenger who’s looking to make a little dough.
I am a former Delta flight attendant. We have all been bumped by a cart a time or two. It would be almost impossible to be hit in the shoulder with a cart, unless she is 4 feet tall. Several times? Sounds pretty fishy to me.