American Airlines has replaced its legal team defending a Texas lawsuit after a filing last week blamed a 9-year-old Texas girl for allegedly being secretly recorded while using an aircraft bathroom.
In an email to The Dallas Morning News, attorneys for the plaintiffs at Lewis &Llewellyn LLP said it was notified on Friday that Kelly Hart &Hallman, LLP would be representing the Fort Worth-based airline in the case.
“As a result of the intense media and public backlash surrounding the outrageous allegation, we are not surprised to learn that American Airlines fired its law firm,” said Paul Llewellyn, an attorney representing the young girl and her family. “With the benefit of this new legal representation, we hope that American Airlines will now take a fresh look at the case and finally take some measure of responsibility for what happened to our client. Otherwise, we are very confident that a Texas jury will do the right thing and hold American Airlines responsible.”
American Airlines confirmed that it has replaced its legal team on the case. A representative for Fort Worth-based Kelly Hart &Hallman was not immediately available for comment.
Families of at least two minors sued American Airlines after it became public that a flight attendant for the company had been caught taping a cell phone camera to the toilet seat in a lavatory on a plane and directing the children to use it. Investigators later found photos of children who were seven, nine, 11 and 14 at the time on an iCloud account, law enforcement officials alleged.
This week, American called a legal filing in the case an “error” after it blamed the young girl for the incident. The defense originally stated, “any injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained” by the plaintiff “were proximately caused by (the) plaintiff’s own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by (the) plaintiff’s use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”
