Skies Anything but Friendly, Says Dornan’s Lawsuit : Courts: GOP congressman seeks damages from United Airlines for kicking him off flight for refusing to recline his seat as told.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan on Friday sued United Airlines for having him kicked off a jetliner last April after a dispute with a flight attendant over a reclined seat, his attorney said.

The seven-term congressman was ordered off the Chicago-bound flight because he refused to place the back of his seat in an upright position before takeoff.

“It was just something that I couldn’t let go,” Dornan said Friday of his decision to sue. “The way they treated me, I couldn’t believe it. . . . I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a dream.”

When the Garden Grove Republican boarded United Flight 116 on the night of April 30, he was on crutches, according to his Los Angeles attorney, Anthony F. Latiolait.

Dornan said he had been given permission by other flight attendants on the plane to partly recline his seat. But when the supervising flight attendant walked by his 11th-row coach seat, she told him he could not recline.

Dornan tried to tell that attendant that he was under a doctor’s orders not to sit upright because he had just undergone hip replacement surgery three weeks earlier, but she did not seem to listen, his attorney said.

The attendant then told Dornan that he might be put off the plane if he did not comply, Latiolait said. By that time, the plane was taxiing along a Los Angeles International Airport runway.

“That got me uptight,” Dornan told a reporter after the incident, “so I said, being sarcastic, ‘Wait a minute, we may have to do that.’ ”

The attendant then apparently went to the pilot and said there was an uncooperative passenger aboard, Latiolait said. The pilot turned the plane around and taxied back to the terminal, he said.

Latiolait said Dornan “ultimately complied” by “putting himself in a strange position” so the back of the seat could be placed in an upright position.

“But they ignored that,” Latiolait said. “They had made up their minds. The plane was going back to the terminal.”

Back at the terminal, Dornan was removed from the plane, which was ultimately destined for Washington.

According to news reports, several passengers, angered by the delay, applauded as Dornan hobbled away on crutches.

Dornan then was forced to wait an hour at the airport for his wife to pick him up and drive him back home to Orange County.

“I was on the bench with my crutches,” Dornan said after the incident, “like a little waif.”

United Airlines representatives could not be reached late Friday for comment.

Dornan contends in his suit that he was humiliated by the captain and crew because of the loud dispute over the seat, Latiolait said.

According to Latiolait, Dornan also missed some of his business and congressional duties as a result of getting booted off the airliner.

“I feel like I’ve been abused,” Dornan said after the incident.

Dornan is suing the airline for breach of contract, defamation and negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks unspecified general, special and punitive damages, his attorney said.

“You can’t put a price on a man’s reputation,” Dornan said. “I have to live with this my entire life.”