United States: Federal Court Dismisses All But Contract Claims Arising Out Of Alleged Bribery Scheme

In Ahmed v. Air France-KLM, et al., the plaintiffs were passengers on various KLM flights who asserted claims alleging that KLM employees in Nairobi, Kenya discriminated against them on the basis of their Somali ethnicity, demanded bribes from them and prevented them from boarding their flights. Each of the plaintiff passengers told a similar story that they were traveling on itineraries including stops in the United States, and were refused boarding onto KLM flights out of Nairobi, Kenya. The plaintiffs claimed that KLM employees, especially one named John Thumi, who was involved with each incident, advised them that their travel documents were insufficient as part of a scheme to extract bribes before continuing their travel.

KLM filed a motion for summary judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' claims, which were resolved as follows:

False Imprisonment, Fraud, Conversion and IIED. The court dismissed these claims pursuant to the Georgia (US) rule that an employer generally is not vicariously liable for an employee's intentional torts, concluding that KLM could not be held vicariously liable in this case because the employees' actions were for their own personal benefit, and were not in furtherance of KLM's business.

Negligent Hiring, Training, Supervision and Retention. The court dismissed these claims because the plaintiffs failed to submit any evidence in support of those claims, including any evidence that KLM knew, or should have known, that its employees were attempting to bribe passengers.

Georgia RICO and Section 1981. The court dismissed these claims on the basis that neither could be based on conduct outside the United States.

Loss of Consortium. The court held that there was no evidence that the incident alleged affected this plaintiff's marriage, and, therefore, that there was no evidence to support a loss of consortium claim.

Breach of Contract/Breach of Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing. The court denied KLM's motion as to these claims. In so holding, it first held that these claims were for complete non-performance, and therefore not governed by the Montreal Convention (Article 19). It then held that KLM could not rely on its conditions of carriage, in which KLM reserved its right to refuse carriage if it had questions regarding the validity of a passenger's travel documents, because (1) the bribery scheme raised questions of fact as to whether there was a legitimate basis to question the validity of these passengers' travel documents, and (2) the passengers all were able to travel on other airlines using the same travel documents. The court added that the bribery claims were sufficient to support the claim for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

Punitive Damages and Attorneys' Fees. Finally, the court dismissed the punitive damages claims on the ground that they are not recoverable for breach of contract/breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims, and the claim for attorneys' fees because it was not properly alleged in the complaint.

Although Air France-KLM did not separately move for summary judgment, the decision of the Court was applied to Air France-KLM anyway. Ahmed v. Air France-KLM, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23066 (N.D. Ga. Feb. 25, 2016).

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.