Combat Veteran With PTSD Wasn't Allowed To Fly With Her Service Dog So She Sued, Wash. Post. 10/29
Lisa McCombs, a decorated Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, claims she’d never had any trouble flying with her service dog, a Labrador retriever named Jake.
That changed one year ago, when she was barred from boarding a regional American Airlines flight with Jake, who was wearing his service vest and was properly documented at the time, according to a federal lawsuit.
McCombs suffers from PTSD and relies on her dog to calm her anxiety and panic before it overwhelms her.
But as she waited to board her return flight from Manhattan, Kansas, an airline agent approached her and asked “in a condescending tone, ‘ummm, are you going to fly with that?'” the suit states.
Thus began a 48-hour nightmare, in which McCombs says she was unable to return to her home in Gulfport, Miss., while she was repeatedly interrogated, stressed and humiliated, causing her mental health to suffer.
After missing her scheduled flight, the suit claims, McCombs was “verbally assaulted” by two agents who loudly demanded, in “rapid succession,” that she tell them the nature of her disability and explain how her service dog helps.
Their conduct implied that McCombs was falsifying her disability, the suit claims, adding that their tone was so harsh that strangers began scolding the agents and trying to comfort McCombs.
“I have PTSD, look at me, I’m an anxious mess!” McCombs replied, according to the suit filed in federal court in Mississippi on Monday,
“He’s my service dog! I don’t understand why I’m being treated like this!”
McCombs, the lawsuit states, “was emotionally crushed and humiliated by the conduct of (Americans’) agents, who discriminated against her because of her disability and publicly shamed her.”
The suit alleges negligence, breach of contract and violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and asks American Airlines to compensate McCombs for her airline tickets, legal fees and medical treatment. She is also pursuing damages from American and its regional subsidiary, Envoy Air, for “reckless disregard” of her rights.
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