Flyer Beware

Suppose you are about to board a commercial flight — or are already aboard — and notice some of the passengers behaving suspiciously. What is the correct thing to do? Shrug, get on the flight, and hope for the best? Or phone the authorities and have them check it out? The latter course was taken by a number of passengers in what has become known on the Internet as the case of the Flying Imams. And now those passengers could be in legal trouble in a lawsuit that has been filed by the imams, seeking damages from U.S. Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis. For it turns out that the lawsuit names a number of so-called "John Doe" defendants whose names the imams seek to discover and from whom the imams also may seek damages.

This was brought to our attention in a post on Powerlineblog.com, whose Scott Johnson quotes a column in the Star Tribune by Katherine Kersten. She sketches the incident this way: "The imams engaged in a variety of suspicious behaviors while boarding a US Airways flight, according to the airport police report. Some prayed loudly in the gate area, spoke angrily about the United States and Saddam, switched seats and sat in the 9/11 hijackers' configuration, and unnecessarily requested seatbelt extenders that could be used as weapons, according to witness reports and US Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader."

Ms. Kersten reports that the imams' lawsuit "appears to be the latest component in a national campaign to intimidate airlines and government agencies from acting prudently to ensure passenger safety. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is advising the imams, is also calling for congressional hearings and promoting federal legislation to ‘end racial profiling' in air travel. If the legislation passes, airport personnel who disproportionately question passengers who are Muslim or of Middle Eastern origin could be subject to sanctions."

Ms. Kersten reports that paragraph 21 of the imams' complaint describes the John Doe defendants this way: "Defendants ‘John Does' were passengers ... who contacted U.S. Airways to report the alleged ‘suspicious' behavior of Plaintiffs' performing their prayer at the airport terminal." She quotes the complaint as going on to assert: "Plaintiffs will seek leave to amend this Complaint to allege true names, capacities, and circumstances supporting [these defendants'] liability ... at such time as Plaintiffs ascertain the same." Writes Ms. Kersten: "In plain English, the imams plan to sue the ‘John Does,' too."

The complaint, Ms. Kersten reports, says that among the John Does was "an older couple who was sitting [near the imams] and purposely turn[ed] around to watch" as they prayed. And then made a cell-phone call while watching the imams pray. For our part, we would just say that given the way our tort law system has been working these last few decades, it's hard to predict how this case will go. But it's certainly hard to imagine a case like this being filed back in World War II, when our country was united in prevailing until victory against an enemy no more of a threat to our country than the enemy we are fighting today.