2 United Pilots File 1st AIDS-Related Suit Against an Airline : Workplace: Case extends the already-sensitive subject to another group of professionals.
Two United Airlines pilots said Tuesday that they have filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against the airline, alleging that United forbade them from flying because they have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The pilots’ lawyers and some AIDS groups said it appears to be the first such case filed by commercial airline pilots under the Americans With Disabilities Act, which went into effect in 1992.
The case extends the already-sensitive subject of AIDS in the workplace to another group of professionals whose jobs include protecting the safety of others. Similar cases have touched on the medical and dental professions.
United maintained that in the interest of passenger safety, it acted properly in grounding the pilots under rules set by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The pilots’ suit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by R. Christopher Prilliman, 38, of Dallas, and Paul H. Rafalowski, 33, of Laguna Beach. It alleges that after United learned they were HIV-positive, the pilots were grounded despite passing medical examinations given by United and the FAA earlier in 1994.
Prilliman and Rafalowski “shouldn’t have been disqualified and were capable of effectively and safely flying,” said Peter F. Laura, a lawyer for the pilots in Beverly Hills.
Both pilots now have AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Laura said. Their suit does not yet request a specific amount of damages, he added.
United, a unit of UAL Corp. in suburban Chicago, is the nation’s largest airline. Its pilots, like all others, must have a medical certificate from the FAA to fly.
UAL’s medical director, Dr. Gary Kohn, said the airline received information from the pilots’ doctors last year “that led us to believe they had a disqualifying condition” under FAA standards.
He declined to be more specific.
“Since my priority as the flight surgeon is to ensure the safety of passengers and pilots, if I know a pilot has a condition that would disqualify him, then I have to restrict his flying duties until he’s qualified,” Kohn said in a telephone interview. Kohn also said the pilots were not fired, but rather placed on long-term disability, under which they receive 55% of their salaries and certain benefits.
FAA spokesman Hank Price declined comment on the United case but said that being HIV-positive alone does not preclude a pilot from being approved. “A diagnosis of AIDS by internationally accepted criteria is considered a basis for denial” of an FAA medical permit, he said.
Jeff T. Monford, director of the workplace resource center for the National Leadership Coalition on AIDS in Washington, said the pilots’ case illustrates how AIDS now affects an occupation whose leaders generally have been unwilling to deal with the issue. Pilots have taken a misguided “macho” attitude toward AIDS, treating it as “not an issue for pilots, but for the support staff,” he said.
“Maybe a good thing that comes out of this is that they’ll finally be willing to look at this issue,” Monford said. The suit, which has since been transferred to federal court in Santa Ana, was filed in Southern California because that is where the pilots were told of United’s decision, Laura said.
