Hines v. Delta Air Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 March 1972
• Docket Number: No. 30395 Summary Calendar.,30395 Summary Calendar.
• Citation: 461 F.2d 576
• Parties: Louise HINES, joined by her husband, Richard Hines, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees. Surretter HINES, joined by her father and next friend, Richard Hines, and Richard Hines, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

461 F.2d 576 (1972)

Louise HINES, joined by her husband, Richard Hines, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Surretter HINES, joined by her father and next friend, Richard Hines, and Richard Hines, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 30395 Summary Calendar.^*

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 13, 1972.

Horace E. Hill, Daytona Beach, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellants.

James E. Hodge, Jones, Foerster & Hodge, Jacksonville, Fla., for Delta Air Lines, Inc.

Bernard H. Strasser, Green & Strasser, P. A., Daytona Beach, Fla., for Eastern Air Lines, Inc.

Philip A. Webb, III, Jacksonville, Fla., for Florida Air Lines.

Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and INGRAHAM and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge:

Like the American space program, this case struggled through a long tortuous and frustrating history before getting off the ground. The first complaint was filed on March 4, 1969. Four amended complaints have followed and yet the case was still no nearer final resolution on the merits before now than it was nearly three years ago, since each of the subsequent amended complaints was dismissed on the pleadings. This appeal is from dismissal of the Fourth Amended complaint and from the District Court's denial of a Motion for New Trial and Rehearing. Believing that the plaintiff has stated a cognizable claim and properly — though haphazardly — joined all parties, we vacate and remand, so that it can be determined whether there is sufficient thrust to orbit a pleaded claim in a universe of facts.

Looking at the papers of the case through Conley¹ glasses, this much at least is revealed. In March, 1968, Louise Hines telephoned a ticket agent (either Delta Air Lines or Eastern Air Lines — she claims Delta, Delta claims Eastern) requesting air transportation from Birmingham, Alabama to Ocala, Florida.² She explained to the ticket agent that she was blind and paraplegic and would need assistance in traveling. The ticket agent informed her that she would be flying Delta out of Birmingham, with stop-overs in Atlanta and Jacksonville, told her the flight time and the time of arrival in Ocala, and assured her that she would be assisted along the way. A few days later, an Eastern Air Lines ticket arrived in the mail, showing passage from Birmingham to Jacksonville via Delta and then transfer to Florida Air Lines for the last leg of the journey to Ocala.

On the day of the trip, Mrs. Hines and her 14-year-old daughter who had never flown before, were escorted onto a flight in Birmingham by someone, presumably an air lines employee. She was probably on Delta at the time. When the flight arrived in Jacksonville, somebody escorted her off the plane and then, about 20 minutes later, somebody else helped her reboard for the final leg of the journey to Ocala, presumably on a Florida Air Lines flight. During this part of the flight, the door of the plane blew open, producing violent conditions aboard the aircraft which proximately caused Plaintiff serious injury.³

Litigation commenced on April 4, 1969. The complaint filed that day (No. 69-232) named Delta Air Lines as the Defendant⁴ and charged that Delta employees had negligently boarded Mrs. Hines and her daughter on a plane which was not fit for air travel. On June 10, 1969, before Delta had filed any responsive pleading, but substantially after the 20 days allowed by F.R.Civ. P. 12(a) to file such an answer or motion, the complaint in No. 69-232 was amended to clarify Plaintiff's theory that Delta had breached its duty—either in contract⁵ or in tort⁶— to furnish Plaintiff with safe or at least negligence free air passage to Ocala. On the same day, Mrs. Hines' husband and daughter instituted suit (No. 69-381) arising out of the same mid-air event claiming that (i) the daughter had also suffered injuries and (ii) that the husband (father) had thereby "lost services of his daughter" and "is obliged to pay medical expenses incurred."⁷ Delta did not respond to either suit within the time allowed by the Rules, but did file, on October 3, 1969, its first matched pair of Motions to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim on Which Relief Court Be Granted.⁸ In identical unrevealing unillumined cryptic orders, the District Court dismissed the complaints without assignment of reason on November 18, 1969, but with leave to amend by November 26, 1969.

On November 24, 1969, after Delta had taken several depositions, a second amended complaint was filed in each suit,⁹ naming only Delta as the defendant, and these were answered solely by another pair of motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim, filed by Delta on December 8, 1969 together with simultaneously filed Motions to Strike various parts of the complaints. Subsquently,¹⁰ Plaintiff filed papers styled "Motion to Legally File Complaint" in both suits, naming both Delta and Eastern Air Lines in the caption as defendants. Thereafter, on December 31, 1969, Third Amended Complaints¹¹ were filed in each case naming Delta and Eastern as defendants in the caption. Again Delta chose to answer only with motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim (filed December 31, 1969), and on January 15, 1970, these motions were granted as to Delta with leave to amend through February 4, 1970. Meanwhile, on January 30, 1970, Eastern got into the act by filing its own unpunctual motions to dismiss the complaint against them for failure to state a claim.

On February 6, 1970, Plaintiff filed five separate documents — (i) a "Fourth Amended Complaint" in No. 69-232 served only on Delta and naming only Delta as a Defendant in the caption, but naming Delta, Eastern and Florida Air Lines as Defendants in the body of the complaint, (ii) a "Fourth Amended Complaint" in No. 69-232 served only on Eastern and naming only Eastern as a Defendant in the caption, but naming Delta, Eastern and Florida as Defendants in the body of the complaint, (iii) a "Fourth Amended Complaint" in No. 69-232 served only on Florida and naming only Florida as a Defendant in the caption, but naming Delta, Eastern and Florida as Defendants in the body of the complaint, (iv) a "Fourth Amended Complaint" in No. 69-381 served only on Delta and naming only Delta as a Defendant in the caption, but naming Delta, Eastern and Florida as Defendants in the body of the complaint, and (v) a "Fourth Amended Complaint" in No. 69-381 served only on Eastern and naming only Eastern as a Defendant in the caption, but naming Delta, Eastern and Florida as Defendants in the body of the complaint. As if that were not enough, on February 10, 1970, Plaintiff filed another "Fourth Amended Complaint" in No. 69-381 (but not in No. 69-232) naming all three Defendants as Defendants in both the caption and the body of the complaint and served on all parties.

Delta responded to this pleading on February 11, 1970, by motions to dismiss with prejudice for (a) late filing and (b) failure to state a claim. Florida Air Lines answered — late (March 30, 1970) — in No. 69-232 only, by filing its motion to dismiss for (a) late filing, (b) failure to obtain a Court order to join an additional party (F.R.Civ.P. 21) and (c) failure to state a claim. This motion was filed well beyond the 20-day period allowed by the Rules to answer a complaint. Meanwhile, Eastern, with the apparent acquiescence of the District Court (see footnote 12, infra), stood on its earlier motions of January 30, 1970 to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

On April 20, 1970, in documents naming Delta and Eastern, but not Florida, in the caption, the District Court dismissed the multiple "Fourth Amended Complaints."¹²

Plaintiff filed "Motions for New Trial and/or Rehearing" which were denied by the District Court without assignment of reasons on June 29, 1970. This consolidated appeal followed.

It is evident to this Court at this point that this case has been needlessly complicated by general mishandling. Plaintiff's counsel's lack of familiarity with Federal procedure is painfully apparent and witnessed by such eccentric practices as the filing of a heretofore unknown "Motion to Legally File Complaint," and by the wholly unnecessary and confusing structuring of the case into two separate cases with separate papers presented against each of the three airline defendants. Delta is not free from fault. It has failed to comply with Rule 12(a) prescribing time limits for answering a complaint¹³ and it is difficult to comprehend its continued insistence that the complaints failed to state a cause of action because they did not allege such precise factual details as the exact mid-air location of the accident or the make, model and identification number of the aircraft involved. Apparently Delta was merely oblivious to the well-established rule of Conley v. Gibson, 1957, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80, that "a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." 355 U.S. at 45-46, 78 S. Ct. at 102. Instead, Delta's sole authority cited in each of its very brief and virtually identical "briefs" in support of its consecutive motions to dismiss is one repeated incantation excerpted from 8 Am.Jur.2d.

Eastern's lone Motion to Dismiss of January 30, 1970, was equally without merit because of its failure to recognize the Conley rule, to say nothing of its timing. The same is true of Florida Air Lines and its insistence that a claim that its aircraft was apparently so unfit that the door flew open during midflight causing injury to a passenger does not state a claim upon which relief could be awarded.

All the while the District Court was perhaps unwittingly adding to the frustrations. Dismissals cannot be sustained under Conley for factual inadequacies, and yet the Judge's...