## Facts

- Louise Sawyer and Grace Fuller, African-American sisters, traveled as passengers on Southwest Airlines.
- On February 15, 2001, they missed a scheduled flight from Las Vegas to Kansas City after arriving at the gate less than ten minutes before departure; they were unaware of the airline’s “ten-minute rule” requiring passengers to be at the gate at least ten minutes before departure.
- The sisters were placed on standby for a later flight.
- During boarding of the standby flight, with passengers standing in the aisle and the flight behind schedule, a flight attendant made a public-address announcement using a rhyme: “eenie, meenie, minie, moe, pick a seat, we gotta go.”
- The sisters testified they were the only passengers standing in the aisle at that moment, other passengers “snickered,” and they understood the rhyme to invoke a historically racist version of the phrase and to be directed at them because of their race.
- They reported feeling humiliated and angry; Fuller’s hands shook and she took epilepsy medication to prevent a seizure.
- Fuller experienced a grand mal seizure three days later and attributed it to stress from the incident; her treating neurologist testified she could have seizures “at any time or place,” could not identify seizures specifically caused by stress, and noted shaking hands could be a medication side effect.
- Plaintiffs designated an expert (Dr. Valdenia Winn) to address racial discrimination and the effect of the incident.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence of intentional race discrimination and interference with their contractual right to nondiscriminatory airline services to proceed under 42 U.S.C. § 1981.
2. Whether the flight attendant’s announcement and related conduct met Kansas’s “extreme and outrageous” requirement and caused severe distress sufficient for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
3. Whether Fuller could recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress under Kansas law given the physical-injury requirement and the lack of a distinct negligence theory.
4. Whether plaintiffs’ expert testimony satisfied Fed. R. Evid. 702 and Daubert reliability and helpfulness standards.

## Decision

- The court granted in part and denied in part Southwest’s motions.
- Summary judgment was denied in part on the § 1981 claim, allowing it to proceed to trial based primarily on the “eenie, meenie, minie, moe” incident and disputed inferences about discriminatory intent and contractual interference.
- Summary judgment was granted for Southwest on both plaintiffs’ IIED claims because the conduct did not satisfy Kansas’s demanding “extreme and outrageous” standard and the evidence did not show distress of the required severity.
- Summary judgment was granted for Southwest on Fuller’s NIED claim because Kansas generally requires physical injury tied to negligence and the record did not support a distinct negligent act or a reliable causal link between the incident and the later seizure.
- The court partially excluded plaintiffs’ expert under Rule 702/Daubert, barring opinions not sufficiently reliable or not helpful (including opinions that effectively told the jury what conclusion to draw about motive).

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is proper only when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; the record is viewed in the nonmovant’s favor.
- A § 1981 plaintiff must show protected-class status, intent to discriminate on the basis of race, and interference with a contractual interest; intent may be inferred from context and disputed facts can require jury resolution.
- Under Kansas law, IIED requires conduct so extreme and outrageous as to be “utterly intolerable” and distress so severe that a reasonable person could not be expected to endure it.
- Under Kansas law, NIED generally requires a contemporaneous physical injury or impact and a negligence theory; emotional harm claims cannot be recast as negligence without a distinct negligent breach and causation evidence.
- Expert testimony must be reliable and helpful under Rule 702; experts may not offer unsupported social commentary or legal/conclusory opinions on intent that invade the jury’s role.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the passengers’ § 1981 race-discrimination claim to proceed based on disputed facts surrounding the boarding announcement’s racial meaning and intent, but dismissed Kansas emotional-distress tort claims for failure to meet strict doctrinal thresholds and limited plaintiffs’ expert testimony to admissible, jury-helpful matters.


Sawyer v. Sw. Airlines Co., 243 F. Supp. 2d 1257 (D. Kan. 2003)