OAKLAND, Calif. - Southwest Airlines cannot be sued over the death of a passenger whose medical distress was mistaken for unruly behavior by a flight crew out of Oakland, a California appeals court ruled this week.
The decision on Wednesday, reported by the Bay Area News Group, upheld an Alameda County trial court’s decision over what happened to Newport Beach resident Rich Ilczyszyn, 46 – a financial trader and CNBC contributor.
He ended up suffering a deadly pulmonary embolism while on a flight from Oakland to Orange County on Sept. 19, 2014 – but the flight crew thought he was just being disruptive because of his odd behavior on the plane.
His family had filed a wrongful-death suit against Southwest and the flight crew, saying Ilczyszyn died because the crew failed to give him any help.