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Mercnbeth -> Another Airport Vibrator Story (11/19/2004 3:37:43 PM)
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One may have closed an airport in Australian. In the US - we SUE!!
Florida woman's sex toy lawsuit against Delta goes to appeals
By DOUG GROSS
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA
Renee Koutsouradis of Tarpon Springs, Fla., was on a Delta Air Lines jet awaiting takeoff from Dallas when her name was called over the loudspeaker and she was pulled from the plane.
Something was buzzing in her luggage.
When taken to the taxiway, she told a Delta security agent that the buzzing was likely coming from a sex toy she and her husband had just bought during their trip to Las Vegas.
Koutsouradis, 38, says she was then ordered to remove the toy, hold it up and remove its batteries, all in full view of some other passengers on her flight. She claims a baggage handler then licked his lips and made sexually inappropriate comments as other Delta employees laughed.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Friday in the appeal of a Florida federal judge's dismissal of a lawsuit Koutsouradis filed against Delta over the February 2002 incident.
Koutsouradi argues that the Atlanta-based airline's employees publicly humiliated her as she waited for her flight from Dallas to Tampa, Fla.
The lawsuit says Koutsouradis has suffered nightmares and panic attacks and has been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident. It says she was most disturbed by the "offensive and outrageous" comments made by the Delta baggage handler about her sex life.
"She felt that in order for this to not happen to someone else she was going to have to stand up to the airline," said Craig Berman, Koutsouradis's attorney from St. Petersburg, Fla. "She is facing further embarrassment to correct wrongdoing."
Koutsouradis is seeking unspecified damages from Delta. Because it's in federal court, any jury award would be at least $75,000, Berman said.
Last October, the case was heard in U.S. District Court in Florida. But before it was sent to the jury, the judge dismissed it, saying federal aviation laws protect airline workers from lawsuits while they are performing their jobs.
Koutsouradis' attorneys say the law should not have applied to this case.
"Obviously, making sexual comments is not an airline service," Berman said. "You can handle bags without offering a sexual service."
Attorneys for Delta referred questions to the airline's public relations department. Delta spokesman Anthony Black said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
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