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Airline Settles Over Girl's Molestation Claim
« on: Apr 22nd, 2005, 7:37pm » |
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Airline Settles Lawsuit Over Girl's Molestation Claim
ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) -- Northwest Airlines has agreed to pay more than $500,000 to a girl who says she was repeatedly sexually molested by a man seated next to her on a flight from Kansas City, Mo., to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The Midland County girl was 10 at the time of the Aug. 4, 2001 flight. She said she was repeatedly fondled by a man seated next to her.
The girl said she was too frightened to tell flight attendants what had happened but told her stepfather after she arrived in Detroit. He alerted police, who arrested Ravichandra Thuluva, then 28, as he waited for a connecting flight.
Thuluva denied molesting the girl, saying he put his hand on her thigh to calm her. He was found not guilty of a federal charge of aggravated sexual abuse with a child.
The settlement in the civil suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, The Detroit News said.
The girl's family sued the Eagan, Minn.-based carrier, pointing out that they paid Northwest $40 to transport their daughter in its "Unaccompanied Minor Program."
Northwest told parents that its child passengers would have "a safe, happy, fun flight" and would be "monitored and supervised."
On the flight, there were 10 or 11 unaccompanied minor passengers "making it difficult for flight attendants to monitor all of them," U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen wrote.
Rosen refused to throw out the case in a series of rulings. He said Northwest had a special duty to care for minor passengers -- "at a minimum, the additional supervision seemingly promised by (Northwest) in exchange for a higher fare," Rosen wrote.
Northwest had rewritten its contract for transporting unaccompanied minors, and the airline asked Rosen to prevent the introduction of the new form. They also asked that changes to the flight attendant manual introduced after the case not be shown to jurors.
Darrel Zolton, a Saginaw lawyer, is to be appointed conservator for the settlement. On May 25, a Midland Circuit Court judge will hold a hearing to determine how much of the settlement the girl may receive before her 18th birthday. Robert Giroux, a lawyer for the girl, declined to comment on the settlement.
A Northwest Airlines spokesman also declined comment.
Lawyers for both sides asked Rosen to keep the terms of the settlement secret until 2008 and to bar the public from a hearing to approve the settlement. No date for that hearing has been set.
Northwest is Michigan's leading air carrier and handles about 75 percent of the passengers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
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Information from: The Detroit News, http://www.detnews.com
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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