As anyone who has won a case in small claims court against an airline knows, it’s not that hard to get a judge to side with you. It’s collecting from an airline that’s virtually impossible. But readers of this blog are familiar with Linda Sesa’s case against US Airways. And guess what? She just got a check.
Here’s the problem. In order collect from US Airways, she needed to know a few details about the airline and its bank accounts. Information the carrier wasn’t exactly ready to reveal. But her persistence paid.
I was able to find the US Airways bank that was located in Philadelphia by asking — get ready for this — the customer relations department at US Airways.
One of their own employees actually revealed confidential information that all US Airways checks received in Philadelphia are deposited into PNC Bank. That was the information I needed to file the writ of execution and interrogatories. What that meant was that now the money that US Airways owed me would be garnished from their bank account.
Then things got interesting.
I received a message on my cell phone last Wednesday night from US Airways’ legal department, saying they were mailing a check to me the next day and that it would arrive on Friday and to please call if I had any questions. They gave me their direct phone number — imagine that!
I did receive the check exactly when they said it would arrive. The only thing is that because they jumped in and paid me before their account was garnished, they did not include the fees that I had paid through small claims court. I called US Airways at the number they provided. A person actually answered the phone on my first phone call, no recorded messages! They agreed to send the money to cover all court fees.
I received a check for that yesterday.
Lesson learned: taking an airline to small claims court is hardly a no-win proposition. If your air carrier doesn’t send a representative — and it probably won’t — it might be easier to collect than you think.
(Full disclosure: I’m not a lawyer. But there are several attorneys who follow this blog. Anyone have anything to add to this, by way of advice.)
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Chris – what am I missing? Before they were garnished they paid, they simply did not include the courts costs. They sent another check to cover the court costs. Whats the problem? If there was no actual garnishment by a Sheriff or other court officer, then there is no expense for the garnishment.
As for collection, every state has what are called debtors examination. This is another step where you have the court issue an order for the judgment debtor to appear in court for examination. A corporation would send a representative who is there to answer questions about corporate assets. One of those assets is the bank they do business. practically, you garnish a company on the day before payday, when they have the most money on deposit. The costs of the debtors examination are borne by the judgment debtor – it gets added on to the debt.
If you sue an airline and win, and they do not pay. I know [when I practiced in California back in the last 1980's] one of our partners sued for schedule irregularities and being lied to about it. He won a judgment. The airline basically refused to even talk to him about it, claiming they were not properly served. This guy was a partner in a major LA firm, I’m pretty certain he served the defendant and knew how to!
Anyway, this airline was just blowing him off, thinking he was just another poor schlub on the street. They were the big company and did not have to pay. They had the big lawyers, and actually were pretty rude to him. This pissed him off. Since he had a legal and valid judgment for $5250, he sent a levying official to the airport, and attached one of their aircraft at 6am in the morning to secure the debt. The aircraft, a Boeing 727-200, could not leave California until the debt was paid. The flight was scheduled to St. Louis I think.
At that point the ONLY form of payment acceptable to release the collateral, i.e, the 727, is cash. He simply refused to accept a check. He was there [as was I] laughing the whole as the airline scrambled to come u with $5000 at 6am in the morning. The supervisor, who finally came out of the office to literally beg my colleague to let the plane depart and accept a check, then went to other airlines and other terminals and was borrowing money in literally $100 and $200 increments.
He refused the check because he assumed [probably correctly] that it would be dishonored by the time the bank opened at 10am. Once the plane was gone it would be a simple thing to just stop payment on the check, and then send their lawyers into court getting an injunction against him doing it again and escalating the matter to a major event. By only accepting cash, he was able to short circuit that entire concern, even though looked at fairly it seems unreasonable to hold up 100 people because of his problem with the airline.
They airline did go into court for an emergency appeal that day, but, they were 5 days too long – the statute provided they could reopen the judgment within 120 days of being served with the notice of judgment, and it was 125 days. All of the paper s had been served on their corporate agent for service of lawsuits, and his lawsuit, the notice of lawsuit and his demand letters were sitting the desk of a company lawyer who basically ignored them. So it was ultimately determined, after the airline got a judge to let them make their arguments just to have them go away, that they had proper notice of everything. You would have thought once they determined their plaintiff was a partner in top 20 California law firm that he would have gotten the details right.
Anyway, what ‘advice’ is needed here Chris? IF the judgment was paid BEFORE the levy, you cannot collect levy fees. Even of the levy happens because it crosses in the mail. The plaintiff who levies has an obligation to call the levying officer and stop the levy if they are aware of the receipt of payment. . .
Joe, I think you’ve answered my question. As I said, I’m not a lawyer, so once it’s out of my hands as an ombudsman, I’m less than certain about the next steps.
That’s a great story about your colleague. I would have loved to have been there for that.
The levying procedure is fairly strict. He actually sent one of our investigators to the airport the night before to get the tail number of one of the aircraft that arrived at 10pm that night – we checked the schedule to ascertain that that particular 727 would over night @ LAX. He went to the office at with me at 4am and filled out the levying paperwork and had me sign it as an officer of the court – I was qualified to execute the levy once I ascertained there was a valid judgment and he certified it had not been paid.
but ,we had to know the tail number, and aircraft serial number before we could levy. This was in the days before the internet so we had a listing of this airline’s aircraft from of all places an aircraft model decal manufacturer. We figured the hobbyists would get it right! Like spotters.
Anyway, its a fun story. I got a nice dinner out of it by way of thanks.
Great story and funny too….I would have also liked to be there, however, it would have been a little different if I was sitting inside the 737, it would have been annoying, right?
It may be a fun story, but it is outrageous that airlines simply ignore the judicial system.
The lady who won and ultimately collected her money is in my mind a hero. I’m reminded of the old quote “Evil Flourishes When Good Men Do Nothing”
Linda Sesa did something and for one brief shining moment evil did NOT flourish and there is a lesson in this for all of us. What we do with that lesson is up to us. When poor service starts to cost enough HARD DOLLARS you’ll see the airlines jump in and improve it in a meaningful way.
By suffering in silence, you as a customer tell the airlines “All that matters is a cheap ticket”! Is that the message that we want to send?
While Joe F’s story of his colleague’s experience is interesting & funny, they were attorneys & knew what to do. How many of the general public know how to do the same? I would guess very few. I think the original story of the person actually tracking down the bank USAir uses was an accomplishment. And remember it’s not like USAir was offering to pay up before then; it wasn’t until she had gotten the info & took the appropriate steps that she was paid.
In California once you have a judgement you can file for a Creditor’s Examination. The court will issue a subpeona to in effect take the deposition/statement of an officier of the corporation as to where the assets(bank accounts etc.) are located. Also, a “till tap” garnishment is available for cash at the airport counter. Might take several trips if the judgement is large. Nolo Press in Calif. has a good book on how to collect a judgement.
I know this is an old article, but I just came across it and had a laugh. I can’t remember if I have posted this here before on a similar article, but, eh, worth telling again.
Friend of mine deposited payment for her small biz’s telephone bill at a drop-off office in Indianapolis. Unknown to her, the company closed that office the next day and didn’t bother to pick up deposits until six weeks later. In the meantime, no record of her payment, phone company disconnected her service, and phone company would not budge, nobody in customer service knew anything about the office closure and nobody would return any phone calls.
Several weeks later she gets her return check, immediately calls the phone company demanding that they repay her all the fees she incurred for re-establishing phone service and for the lost business she experienced for the week it took them to re-establish service. Ameritech refused, claiming that it still did not have record that they received her payment. She sent them a copy of the return check, Ameritech claimed that they could not read the back of the check to determine if they cleared it through their bank. She sent an 11×17 copy of the check, and after that Ameritech claimed they never received the copy of the returned check, even though there were three certified letters sent and signed by somebody.
She took the company to small claims court. On the day of her appearance, Ameritech did not send a lawyer. The judge had his secretary contact Ameritech to find out why they did not respond to the summons. Their legal department, according to the judge, told him that they could go do things to himself that cannot be said here, and that they would not be sending a lawyer. The judge was so upset that he gave my friend the maximum he could award in Small Claims court, even though she was requesting a much smaller amount. Ameritech was later upset that their lawyers did this and tried to claim that they wern’t properly served, etc. Eventually they did have to cough up a good chunk of money.