Last month, I wrote about the a man who was assaulted by a United employee at Houston (IAH). The assault happened in 2015 and many questioned why it took him two years to come forward. A shocking new allegation explains why.
As a long time United flyer, the victim, Ronald Tigner, claims he tried to work things out with United before filing a lawsuit.
But he was forced to come forward after United threatened to ban him for life and confiscate his miles when he mentioned the word lawsuit. Sound farfetched? That’s what we are hearing from his lawyer–
Tigner claims he contacted United via the proper chain of command, first reaching out to customer service. After hearing nothing back, he sent a certified letter to then-CEO Jeff Smisek. Still no response.
A few weeks later, Tigner reached out again and was allegedly threatened by Nancy Tibbetts, a senior claims representative. Tibbetts told Tigner that “if he filed a lawsuit, he would be banned from ever flying United Airlines again and would lose all of his frequent flyer miles.”
That’s an explosive allegation. Tigner is a long-time United flyer with 2,000,000 miles in his account.
In response to this latest allegation, United stated:
We are taking a thorough look into what happened here and we reached out to our customer to apologize for what occurred.
CONCLUSION
Tigner is seeking $1MN in his lawsuit and I encourage him to seek more. Met with such hostility, punitive damages against United Airlines may be the best and only hope for rooting out the many bad apples that continue to undermine United’s credibility.
Matthew, don’t be in a hurry to post a story where you do not have a chance to proofread your story. In this day of age, spelling errors is really not acceptable. Make sure you have a quality product first.
Is this a joke? The only grammar error I see is in your comment–spelling errors “are” not “is” because you are talking about more than one.
Not a joke, I see that you spelled “again” correctly now. And I only saw one spelling error. Was there more?
A comment about proofreading with multiple errors.
“In this day of age” should be “In this day and age”
“…spelling errors is really not acceptable.”
If you want to nick pick Matthew on his reporting on grammar errors, PLEASE look at your hastily put together comments that are at least THREE grammar errors.
Most readers read blogs for the content, not for perfect grammar. If you want to play high school teacher there are plenty of places to fulfill your wish instead of on a blog. Though before you go practice, get your own grammar in order. Or better yet, Learn it properly yourself first before criticize others’ writing. Spell check alone would not help you on grammar mistakes which you have made aplenty in your short comment!
“nick pick”
The comedy of errors in the comments continues.
*facepalm*
I believe the errors (yes, there are more) by FLL are intentional.
“Tigner is seeking $1MN in his lawsuit and I encourage him to seek more. Met with such hostility, punitive damages against United Airlines may be the best and only hope for rooting out the many bad apples that continue to undermine United’s credibility.”
I’m assuming the lawsuit was filed in Harris County (Houston), which is the problem with seeking more. Texas law limits punitive damages to 2x the amount of economic damages (uncapped) or 1x noneconomic damages (capped at $750k). Note that the story notes that suit was filed for “at least” $1 million in damages, not a fixed sum, so it is likely a moving target depending on how much the jury awards for other damages. Although my guess is this never gets anywhere near a courtroom, given how bad the facts look for United. (No, I am not a lawyer, but my sister is and I picked up a thing or two from her 🙂 )
I do have to commend this guy, though, for actually trying to work something out instead of having his lawyer on speed dial on his way to the hospital. And shame on United for the way they handled this, if the allegations are true. People need to be fired over this.
There may be a rush to judgement here.
Mr. Tigner states that he wished to “work things out” with UA. This is probably in both parties best interest. He then goes on to admit that he broached the subject of a lawsuit to UA. It is possible that rather than ‘threaten’ him, Ms. Tibbetts was pointing out second and third order consequences of such a course of action. I would venture that these actions are a matter of corporate policy, as written by UA’s lawyers, and outside the scope of Ms. Tibbetts power of decision. In that case it is not a threat but a statement of facts. Facts that Mr. Tigner may not have been aware of but could influence his decision with regards to his best interest
The lesson here is to go to a hospital for documentation of injuries any time a physical impact force is received and to place a police report immediately. Let the lawyer contact the corporation and never speak alone with any employee. Present medical bills for physical and mental health care to the corporate risk manager and document denials and lack of responses.
I have watched a video of the incident and the United employee has his back to the camera. Just based on that clip, it’s unclear if there was an assault or if Tigner went limp. Now this incident happened a few feet away from an airport counter. Why was there a discussion between Tigner and probably three United employees.
IMHO, since Tigner is a lawyer, …