Woman who sued over applesauce scuffle at Bob Hope Airport files another amended complaint

This post has been corrected, see below for details.

The woman who got into a tussle with security officials at Bob Hope Airport when they tried to confiscate her applesauce and other snacks filed a third amended complaint in her lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court.

At 125 pages and citing more than 60 defendants, Nadine Hays’ previous complaint was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Patrick Walsh because it was “long and rambling.”

Walsh instructed Hays to focus on the airport incident and arrest that followed.

Her most recent complaint is 25 pages, double spaced.

In it, she still names defendants such as the United States of America and the Department of Homeland Security. Hays is also claiming civil rights violations against the police officers involved in her arrest.

Hays, a Camarillo resident, was arrested in April 2009 after she tried to bring a cooler containing snacks, applesauce, milk and soda onto a plane for her elderly mother and got into a scuffle with Transportation Security Administration officials who would not permit the items past the checkpoint.

Hays alleged she was arrested based on a falsified citizen’s arrest form and tampered evidence, including a surveillance tape that she claims was altered.

They are the same allegations she made in the earlier complaint, which was dismissed.

[For the Record, Feb. 1, 2013: An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized a complaint filed by Nadine Hays in U.S. District Court. It should have stated that the third amended complaint was 25 pages, double spaced, and that she is claiming civil rights violations against the police officers involved in her arrest.]

-- Mark Kellam, Times Community News

Follow Mark Kellam on Twitter: @LAMarkKellam