U.S. COURT OF APPEALS RULES IN FAVOR OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CITING ADA PREEMPTION OF CLAIMS
April 18, 2022
PREEMPTION OF CLAIMS
On March 11, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second District (the “Court”) issued a decision affirming the lower court in a case brought by SwiftAir, LLC (“SwiftAir”) against Southwest Airlines (“Southwest”) alleging breach of contract, fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets, and various other causes of action.
Litigation was preceded by a 2011 agreement between SwiftAir and Southwest through which SwiftAir was to develop a software platform to offer certain inflight deals to Southwest passengers in exchange for Southwest’s testing of the software to determine whether to license it. The trial court who heard the case initially granted a motion made by Southwest for summary adjudication on SwiftAir’s non-contract causes of action based on the ground that they were preempted by the federal ADA while a jury later determined that Southwest was not liable for breach of contract since
On appeal, the Court affirmed the lower court’s decision finding that SwiftAir’s non-contract claims were preempted by the ADA. Specifically, the Court found that because SwiftAir’s non-contract claims expressly referred to Southwest’s services, the ADA preempted SwiftAir’s claims because the ADA preempts causes of action if they relate to an airline’s prices, routes, or services either by expressly referring to them or by having a significant economic effect upon them.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6665).
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