An appeals court has upheld the primary wrongful-dismissal and rights-violation claims of flight attendant Charlene Carter, who won back her job after Southwest Airlines fired her for expressing pro-life views. However, part of the case is heading back to the Texas trial court that originally decided in her favor.
The latest decision in Carter’s case, which she has been fighting for eight years, came from the Fifth Circuit appeals court in New Orleans on May 8.
A three-judge panel agreed with a Texas jury’s 2022 verdict holding the airline and Carter’s union, Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union of America, responsible for violating her religious rights. Carter said her pro-life, Christian views compelled her to speak out against the union’s involvement with a pro-abortion group.
In the 63-page decision, the appellate panel refused to grant a new trial, which the airline and union had sought. In addition, Carter prevailed on all issues that the jury decided against the union. Jurors correctly found that the union breached its duty to protect Carter and worked to get Carter terminated for social media posts, the appellate court said.
Evidence also proved the airline illegally discriminated against Carter’s religious-based actions, the court said, but disagreed with another point that the jury decided.
The appellate judges explained how they reached that decision. They said federal law required them to analyze Carter’s actions separately from her beliefs.
In doing so, the appeals court found that many other Southwest employees also held “pro-life, Christian beliefs,” similar to Carter’s, but didn’t face discrimination. Therefore, the appeals count concluded that the airline illegally discharged Carter for “actions she took in furtherance of her religious beliefs” but not because of Southwest’s “alleged hostility toward those beliefs.”Therefore, the appeals court sent that aspect of the case back to the Texas trial court, with instructions “to enter judgment for Southwest” on that point.
The National Right to Work Foundation, a nonprofit that has been providing free legal aid to Carter, issued a statement for its president, Mark Mix, to The Epoch Times.
He described the appellate ruling as “another victory for Charlene Carter.”
The airline and union did not respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment by publication time.
Mix said Carter’s case “exposes a bigger injustice in American labor law,” that workers can be forced to financially support unions that they oppose.
Mix said it is “outrageous” that Carter and other flight attendants must pay union fees, “or else be fired by Southwest,” despite multiple court decisions that the union failed to represent Carter’s best interests.
Carter’s battle dates to 2017, when the union president complained about social media posts and messages from Carter.
Carter made no reference to her employment with the airline in the posts, but company officials said she was “identifiable” as a Southwest Airlines employee based on photos posted several years prior. The company said that Carter was creating a false impression that she was representing the airline with her messages against abortion. That led to her dismissal from the job she had held for more than 20 years without incident.
When other efforts to fight her dismissal failed, Carter filed a federal lawsuit through Mix’s organization.
The case was lodged in Texas because that is where the airline is headquartered; Carter lives in Colorado.
After a Dallas jury ruled unanimously in Carter’s favor in 2022, the trial judge, Brantley Starr, ruled that federal limits on punitive damages required him to reduce Carter’s multimillion-dollar award to about $800,000; Southwest was ordered to pay $500,000 while the union was to pay the remaining $300,000.
Payment of those funds was put on hold while the airline and union appealed the jury verdict.
But under Starr’s order, Southwest Airlines reinstated Carter.
She underwent required retraining and returned to serving as a flight attendant in March 2023; she has remained employed there since.
It was unclear whether the appellate ruling could affect monetary awards in the case or if additional court challenges could follow.
