September began with news of a New York City mom whose unaccompanied 5-year-old son somehow ended up on the wrong JetBlue flight, and now the month comes to an end with that mom filing a lawsuit against the airline that misrouted her child.
If you’re coming into the story late, here’s a quick catch-up: On Aug. 17, the 5-year-old was supposed to fly home on JetBlue from Cibao International Airport in the Dominican Republic to JFK International in New York City. The boy’s family had booked him an unaccompanied minor ticket for the trip, meaning JetBlue staffers were responsible for making sure he arrived safely at his destination — which, again, was supposed to be New York.
The mom says she waited at JFK for her son to arrive, only to have JetBlue present her with a child that, well… it wasn’t her son.
Thirty minutes of confusion pass, and the mom says the airline told her they had located her son and he was waiting near the baggage claim. But, once again — not her son.
According to the mom, it was another three hours until JetBlue successfully located her 5-year-old, several hundred miles, and a completely different accent, away at Boston’s Logan International.
Mother and son were eventually reunited, but in a lawsuit being filed today in a state court in Queens the mom alleges that JetBlue’s “outrageous and shocking” behavior resulted in severe emotional distress.
The complaint claims the mom “became sick and suffered… extreme fear, mental shock, mental anguish and psychological trauma.”
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, also accuses JetBlue of negligent supervision of the minor child, and negligent hiring and supervision of employees.
While the FAA has asked JetBlue to investigate how this mix-up happened, the mom’s attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, says this lawsuit will serve the purpose of providing the public an “independent inquiry” that he claims will use the “sworn testimony of JetBlue employees to shine a light on what occurred to prevent it from happening again to other children.”
The New York Daily News was the first to report on this lawsuit.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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