Jury sides with Southwest Airlines
on 'eenie, meenie, minie, moe' quip
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Kan. - A Southwest Airlines flight attendant's variation on a rhyme with a racist history did not discriminate against two black passengers, a federal jury decided.
The U.S. District Court jury of seven white men and one white woman deliberated less than an hour Wednesday before reaching its verdict.
Grace Fuller, 49, and her sister Louise Sawyer, 46, both of suburban Kansas City, filed the suit over comments flight attendant Jennifer Cundiff made after they boarded a Southwest flight to return from a Las Vegas vacation three years ago next month.
As the two were trying to find seats on the crowded plane, Cundiff said over the intercom, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go."
Sawyer and Fuller said the rhyme immediately struck them as a reference to an older, racist version in which the first line is followed by the words "catch a n----r by the toe." They testified at the two-day trial that they were embarrassed, humiliated and frustrated. Fuller said she suffered a small seizure on the flight home, which said was triggered by the remark. Later at home, she said she had a grand mal seizure and was bedridden for three days.
Cundiff, 25, of Argyle, Texas, testified that she had never heard the racist version and that she was only trying to inject humor to make the flight more enjoyable and memorable. She wanted passengers to take their seats so the plane could leave.
Cundiff, who had been a flight attendant for eight months at the time, said she had used the rhyme before on other flights. She said that it was not until she showed her mother the letters complaining about what she said that she learned about the racist version of the rhyme.
Fuller said after the verdict that there was enough evidence for jurors to have found she had her sister had been discriminated against.
"If we had jurors of our peers then we would have won the case today, and we should have won the case today, with all the evidence shown," she said.
"It's a shame that the jury pool we had to draw from did not have one black and not one minority," she said. "Something has to be done to make sure there is justice in America for blacks."
Fuller and her sister testified that they first wrote to Southwest complaining that they felt the rhyme was racially offensive, asking that flight attendants stop using it. They said they decided to sue because they felt the airline did not take their complaints seriously.
The lawsuit accused Southwest of violating a 1981 civil rights law that prevents businesses from discriminating against minority customers by treating them differently from white customers for the same service.
Scott A. Wissel, appointed to represent the women after they filed a handwritten complaint, declined comment about the verdict. In his closing argument he said Cundiff's use of the rhyme was tantamount to a racial slur.
John W. Cowden, who represented Southwest Airlines, said he and his client were pleased with the verdict.
"All along, Southwest Airlines has contended that it did not intentionally discriminate against the two ladies," he said. "We are pleased the jury agreed and vindicated Southwest and its flight attendant, Jennifer Cundiff."
In his closing argument, Cowden characterized Cundiff's remarks as an innocent attempt at humor.
"At best, this is an argument that something is not politically correct," Cowden told jurors. "At worst, it is nothing. Certainly, this does not support a violation of a federal statute, because these words were spoken."
Cundiff said she was relieved and thought the verdict was fair and just. She maintained that the rhyme had been directed at several passengers, not just Sawyer and Fuller.
"When I first heard they complained about what I said, I didn't know what they were talking about," she said.
While Cundiff said she probably would never use the rhyme again, "I will not tell anyone not to say it."
[wj and big d rubbin off on ya]
