Khan v. American Airlines
Decision Date | 19 August 1994 |
Docket Number | No. 1-93-0261,1-93-0261 |
Parties | , 203 Ill.Dec. 171 Tariq W. KHAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMERICAN AIRLINES, Herb Briick, a servant of American Airlines, and Bob Connors, a servant of American Airlines, Defendants-Appellees. |
Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Ivan M. Rittenberg of Rittenberg & Buffen, Chicago, for appellant.
Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, Chicago (Robert E. Haley and Adam J. Glazer, of counsel), for appellees.
The plaintiff, Tariq Khan, appeals from an order dismissing his complaint pursuant to the motion of the defendants filed under section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 110, par. 2-615.) The plaintiff's claims were against the defendant, American Airlines (American) and two American employees for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Because this case was decided on a motion to dismiss, our review should be restricted to the allegations of the complaint. But we have had some difficulty in determining precisely what was considered by the trial judge as assertions of fact, that is, whether she considered matters which the plaintiff now maintains she judicially noticed. We will proceed on the basis of the facts as they have been submitted to us in the parties' briefs.
Khan was on the premises of American, and the defendants Herb Briick and Bob Connors were employees of American, who were assigned security duties. American had in its possession an airline ticket believed to be stolen. American delivered the stolen ticket to Khan with the intent to entrap him and without facts to indicate that Khan knew the ticket was stolen when American, Briick and Connors delivered the ticket to him. After making the delivery, they arrested Khan and had the Chicago police take him into custody and be confined in a police station and to be fingerprinted and photographed. The defendants had no factual basis or reason to believe Khan committed a crime; nonetheless they had him charged with the crime of theft. Briick signed a misdemeanor complaint for theft against Khan. On April 4, 1990, a trial judge in criminal court entered an order of As of June 14, 1991, the charge was not reinstated by the State.
In the second amended complaint, which is in issue here, count I charged American and Briick and Connors as servants of American with false imprisonment. Count II charged American and Briick and Connors as servants of American with malicious prosecution. Count III alleged that Briick acted alone or in concert with Connors or others and was guilty of false imprisonment of Khan. Count IV alleged that Briick was guilty of malicious prosecution. Count V and VI made the same allegations against Connors as it did against Briick in counts III and IV. Count VII alleged that American, Briick and Connors were guilty of intentional infliction of emotional distress because they arrested Khan knowing that he was en route to his father's funeral.
The judge dismissed the entire complaint. The record does not contain a report of proceedings for the hearing at which she entered her order. Consequently, we are unable to determine the basis upon which she based her ruling.
American maintains that the entire complaint was properly dismissed because the causes of action asserted by the plaintiff have been preempted by the Federal Aviation Act. Section 1305 of the Act provides in part as follows:
"(a) Preemption
(1) * * * [N]o State or political subdivision thereof and no interstate agency or other political agency of two or more States shall enact or enforce any law, rule, regulation, standard or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier having authority under subchapter IV of this chapter to provide air transportation." 49 U.S.C.App. § 1305(a)(1) (1988).
Section 1506 states that "[n]othing contained in this chapter shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the provisions of this chapter are in addition to this chapter." (49 U.S.C.App. § 1506 (1988).) The issue before us is whether the claims made by the plaintiff relate "to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier." We judge that they do not.
Before 1992, several of the cases involving the scope of section 1305 could be divided into two categories: economic or regulatory issues and personal injury or damage issues (which included tort claims under state law). Several of the claims in the former category were held to be preempted by the language of section 1305. In the area of state deceptive advertising or antitrust laws, courts relied on the term "relating to * * * rates" from section 1305 and reasoned that a state's attempt to regulate the dissemination of information for airline ticket prices or discounts related to or influenced "rates." (See Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Mattox (5th Cir.1990), 897 F.2d 773 ( ); Illinois Corporate Travel, Inc. v. American Airlines, Inc. (7th Cir.1989), 889 F.2d 751 ( ).) In the same category, courts have relied on the phrase "relating to * * * services" for the preemption of claims involving handicapped seating, smoking and boisterous or uncooperative passengers. See e.g., O'Carroll v. American Airlines, Inc. (5th Cir.1989), 863 F.2d 11 ( ); Anderson v. USAir, Inc. (D.C.Cir.1987), 818 F.2d 49 ( ); Diefenthal v. Civil Aeronautics Board (5th Cir.1982), 681 F.2d 1039 (smoking regulations).
On the other hand, disputes involving traditional state law tort claims generally have not been preempted. The underlying rationale has been that the scope of the Act should not be so broad that it is used as a justification for the preemption of all conceivable state law claims having a remote connection to "rates, routes, or services." See e.g., In re Air Crash Disaster at Stapleton International Airport (D.C.Colo.1988), 721 F.Supp. 1185 ( ); Bieneman v. City of Chicago (7th Cir.1988), 864 F.2d 463 ( ).
The defendants rely principally on a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1992, Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc. (1992), 504 U.S. 374, 112 S.Ct. 2031, 119 L.Ed.2d 157. In Morales, the Supreme Court held that state guidelines regarding airline fare advertising were expressly preempted by section 1305 of the Act. The issue was whether the National Association of Attorneys General's fare advertising guidelines ( were preempted by how existing state consumer protection laws apply to advertising and frequent flyer programs)the Act. The Morales court, however, made it clear that certain state laws would not be preempted by the Act even under its broad reading of section 1305:
Morales, 504 U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2040.
After oral argument, we granted the defendants leave to cite Pearson v. Lake Forest Country Day School (1994), 262 Ill.App.3d 228, 199 Ill.Dec. 324, 633 N.E.2d 1315, in which the plaintiff filed a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress because American Airlines refused to permit the minor plaintiff to board an airplane because of an alleged lack of available seats. The complaint alleged that seats were available. The plaintiff was a relative of an airline employee and was using a pass available to families of employees. The pass did not guaranty a seat on a flight. Rather, the pass passengers were required to put themselves on a standby list. The appellate court affirmed a dismissal of the complaint on the ground of Federal preemption holding that the plaintiff's claims "affect airline services directly because they immediately arise from the denial, or the allegedly inadequate provision, of such services." (Pearson, 199 Ill.Dec. at 329, 633 N.E.2d at 1320.) We agree with the holding in Pearson, but it is not factually in point in this case. Parenthetically, we note that the holding is at odds with a case cited late by the plaintiff, West v. Northwest Airlines (9th Cir.1993), 995 F.2d 148, in which the court of appeals held that the application of Morales did not compel preemption of a state claim of a passenger who was bumped from an overbooked airplane.
In Miller v. Northwest Airlines (App.Div.1992), 253 N.J.Super. 618, 602 A.2d 785, the plaintiff brought claims for false arrest, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress after he was detained by airport security and told that he was under arrest for having a cigarette lighter that resembled a small handgun. After the police arrived, he was permitted to board, and the police later mailed him the lighter. The trial judge granted the defendant's motion to dismiss. The New Jersey appellate court reversed and held that the plaintiff's claims were not preempted because the plaintiff's state tort claims...
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