Flight attendants' attorneys say Dodgers co-employed them with United
attorneys for two United Airlines flight attendants who allege the company provided youthful, white female attendants on its charter flights for the Los Angeles Dodgers state in new court papers that the airline has conceded in discovery that the team has a large say in the composition of the flight crew on road trips.
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In court papers filed Friday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gail Killefer, lawyers for UA flight attendants Darby Quezada and Dawn Todd state that the discovery shows that the Dodgers and team traveling secretary Scott Akasaki made hiring, staffing and scheduling decisions involving the plaintiffs and allegedly did so in a "racist, ageist and discriminatory manner."
Among other things, the Dodgers and/or Akasaki took part in interviewing the plaintiffs for the Dodgers' charter flight program, in deciding whether or not the women were selected, in ranking them as to how many hours they should work, what Dodgers-related uniforms they should wear during flights and whether they would be demoted or terminated from the program, according to the Quezada-Todd lawyers' court papers.
The Dodgers and/or Akasaki also determined whether to provide the two flight attendants with such valuable perks as merchandise and game tickets, according to their attorneys' court papers. The plaintiffs' attorneys say an alleged email from Akasaki to United addressed the removal and demoting of Quezada and Todd as well as all other minority flight attendants from the Dodger charter flight program.
"As a result ... defendant Dodgers was a joint employer of plaintiffs and defendants Dodgers and Akasaki aided and abetted in harassment, discrimination and retaliation against plaintiffs," the Quezada-Todd attorneys contend in their pleadings.
The suit was originally filed in October 2023 and alleges that United engaged in discrimination by removing the only minority female flight attendants from the Dodgers charter flights and replacing them with "young, white, thin women who did not have to interview for the highly coveted positions."
United twice removed the case to federal court on jurisdictional grounds, but each time a federal judge sent the case back to Superior Court. While the case was in federal court, the plaintiffs' lawyers added the Dodgers as defendants.
Last week, Judge Gail Killefer ruled that the flight attendants' attorneys had sufficiently shown for now that the Dodgers had exercised significant control over the two women. However, the judge also found that the plaintiffs' attorneys needed to amend their complaint in order to answer defense claims that their allegations against the Dodgers are barred by the Railway Labor Act.
"Did the JCBA impose limitations on how the Dodgers selected its flight attendants or was the Dodgers' right to make selection requests unfettered?" Killefer asked in one of many questions posed to the plaintiffs' attorneys in her ruling.
Killefer directed the plaintiffs' attorneys to file an amended complaint addressing whether the Dodgers were indeed joint employers of the two women along with United. The Dodgers' attorney contends that Quezada and Todd exclusively worked for the airline.
Quezada, who is 45 years old and of Mexican, Black and Jewish descent, claims she was called the "flight's maid" because they needed "a Mexican to clean the bathrooms," was told to stop speaking Spanish with a Dodgers player because "We are in America" and endured antisemitic comments such as "You know Jesus died for you even if you don't believe" as well as "You don't look Jewish," the suit alleges.
Todd, a 51-year-old Black flight attendant with nearly two decades of experience at the airline, alleges she suffered retaliation after complaining about the demotion of Black flight attendants, the denial of benefits and perks to Black flight attendants on the Dodgers flights and the racism and ageism she allegedly experienced herself.
Quezada and Todd say they were "abruptly demoted and removed" from the Dodgers' charter flight program during the 2023 season and replaced by younger, white female flight attendants who were hand-selected without being interviewed.
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