Now, if they want to renege from their part of the agreement, they have to refund him the money. Just 'promising' to refund the money is not sufficient; if he wants, he must get the cash in hand. After all, United issued a ticket only when they had the cash in hand, right? Why should he be obligated to relinquish his half of the contract just based on a promise to pay later?
The only thing that SORT of works the way you describe would be a landlord-tenant situation, where there are legal requirements for evicting someone. However, that is a VERY special case; there are special laws for housing. There are not those sorts of laws for planes. Now, there are laws about refunding money and paying for breaking contracts on plane tickets, but not about REQUIRING that an airliner 'give cash in person' to someone who is kicked off a flight.
Many people seem to think this is unjust. I don't necessarily disagree, but there's no need to go around the internet attacking the messengers. If you don't like how the laws work, write your legislators.
You state that as fact, but is that true? The passenger and airline are bound by a contract of carriage, and the passenger arguably did not violate any of the stipulations in there. The airline had no business asking him to leave. I'd very much like to see this hashed out in court one way or the other, but the fear is that they'll settle without admission of liability and under seal.
It can be hard to even tell which specific laws apply to the case.
So, yes, 'probably' is how the law works, if you don't have solid precedents.
('Probably' could also just mean that there is solid precedent but the author themselves didn't do the research to figure it out. Legal research is a lot of work. It's, like, an actual job to do that sort of thing.)
Even for the worst of crimes, the perpetrator will only probably get caught and only probably get convicted.
They go to court because laws are ALL about 'probably'.
It totally is. In the sense that you have no way to predict with certainty what a judge or jury will rule. Especially in cases where the law seems ambiguous, and/or where it or the relevant aspect of it not been tested in court much.
And rulings are the reciprocal "okay"
"Probably" is exactly how the law works. There's a reason it's called "making your case".
The system tries to reduce the "probably" for certainty, but we're still humans.
https://www.quora.com/How-should-a-breach-of-contract-be-qua...
> The legal system encourages the deliberate breaching of contracts by ensuring that there are no penalties for breach (in fact, if you try to put in a penalty clause in your contract, it won't be enforced)
(Note he's not saying you won't have to pay damages; penalties and damages are not the same. Damages = compensation for the wrong you've caused, for example by breaching a contract, penalties = punishment over and above damages)
Once United Airlines breached its contract with Dr. Dao and decided he could no longer be on their plane, he was trespassing. They owed him damages for breaching the contract, but that's an issue to be decided in court, not right there and then when the cops where asking him to get off. As far as I am aware, it is not the cops job to arbitrate breach of contract issues.
(Again, not a lawyer, and I expect regulations around air travel are more stringent, so it could be more complicated than that. Could be they broke some FAA or DOT or whatever regulation, I really don't know.)
> (Again, not a lawyer, and I expect regulations around air travel are more stringent, so it could be more complicated than that. Could be they broke some FAA or DOT or whatever regulation, I really don't know.)
There are aviation lawyers questioning it: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/04/10/united-airlines-remove...
If we're in agreement that United can break their contract (of course with civil liability), then the question is whether or not common carrier rules prohibit that an extra-contract ejection. And even if they do, what's the legal remedy if they try (and succeed) to do it? I mean, the bottom line is that they can of course physically do it.
Less potential defense for a civil case from the passenger if they can't claim trespass. They could, for example, be more liable for the injuries even though they did not inflict them directly.
Then, if violating some common carrier requirement, also subject to fines. Like the multi million dollar ones doled out for leaving passengers on the tarmac for hours.
It may also serve to educate airport police in the future as to how involved they want to get in a contractual dispute.