Ilczyszyn v. Southwest Airlines CA1/1
Southwest Airlines passenger Richard Ilczyszyn tragically suffered a massive pulmonary embolism while locked inside an airplane lavatory during the final stages of a flight from Oakland to Orange County. Rather than treating Ilczyszyn’s circumstances as a medical emergency, the flight crew perceived him to be a security threat. As a result, he did not receive medical care until after the flight had landed and the other passengers had disembarked. By then, he had gone into cardiac arrest. Although he was resuscitated, he later died in a hospital. Ilczyszyn’s widow Kelly, together with his three children, sued defendant Southwest Airlines Co. (Southwest) alleging that the flight crew’s failure to provide medical assistance caused his death. Following a lengthy trial, the jury found that Southwest was negligent but found against plaintiffs on the issue of causation.
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