A man who suffered a stroke just before boarding an international flight, and suffered a subsequent stroke while flying over the Atlantic Ocean, has been awarded $9.6 million in damages after a jury determined American Airlines was to blame for failing to divert the plane or to seek medical advice — delaying his treatment for eight hours.
Jurors in federal court in San Jose, California, heard six days of testimony before returning the verdict against the Fort Worth-based airline Wednesday afternoon. Jesus Plasencia, a chef who lives in California, was at the gate to board a flight from Miami to Madrid in November 2021 when he suffered a transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke.
The suit alleged the airline violated protocol by failing to consult a medical professional after his wife reported she believed Plasencia had suffered a stroke.
“He should have been evaluated at the gate, and any EMT would have said he needs to go to hospital,” said Darren Nicholson of Dallas firm Burns Charest, who represents Plasencia.
Plasencia alleged protocol was violated again when he suffered a second stroke while flying over the Atlantic Ocean and the plane was not diverted.
“The plane was actually over Bermuda,” Nicholson said. “They could have diverted to Bermuda and been there in 30 minutes, or they could have returned to Miami in an hour and a half.”
Plasencia, who was 63 at the time of his stroke, and his wife were embarking on a 10-day tour of Spain.
Once the plane landed and Plasencia was transported to a hospital in Spain, he remained in critical condition for more than three weeks before he was flown back to the United States in an air ambulance. Today, he cannot speak, write or walk, and he cannot feed or bathe himself without assistance.
“Plasencia’s previous hobbies, including cooking, metal sculpting, kayaking, and biking, are now all beyond his reach,” the lawsuit alleges. “Plasencia depends entirely on daily, significant, around-the-clock, in-home care and intensive rehabilitation.”
Counsel for American Airlines did not respond to a message seeking comment Thursday. The airline issued a statement to The Lawbook.
“The safety and well-being of our passengers is our highest priority,” it reads. “While we respect the jury’s decision, we disagree with the verdict and are currently evaluating next steps.”
Plasencia filed suit in October 2023. Jury selection and testimony began Sept. 8
American Airlines filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law Sept. 11, the day after the plaintiffs rested their case. In the motion, American Airlines argued that there was no evidence it failed to follow its own protocol or any industry standard, that there had been no “accident” as defined under the Montreal Convention, that there was no evidence that anything the airline “did or failed to do increased the severity of the injury,” and that all blame rests on Plasencia and his wife, based on their “refusal to deplane in Miami.”
U.S. District Judge Noël Wise presided over the case and entered an order Sept. 15 denying the motion.
“As has been discussed frequently during the trial, American Airlines’ in-flight manual included various stroke symptoms that flight attendants were expected to know,” she wrote. “Conflicting testimony was presented to the jury regarding whether [one of the flight attendants] failed to properly act on that knowledge, either at the beginning of the flight or an hour and a half in. That testimony could lead a reasonable jury to find that American Airlines violated its policies and procedures. The Court will not take the decision out of the jury’s hands on those grounds.”
The jury of eight, whose foreman was a pilot, deliberated for about six hours over two days before reaching its verdict.
Jurors heard from a leading neurologist that had the plane diverted or had a medical professional been consulted at the gate prior to takeoff, statistics show Plasencia’s injuries from the stroke would have been far less severe. Jurors also were presented evidence that the cost of Plasencia’s past and future medical care would exceed $7 million.
The jury’s total award, which included damages for mental anguish and loss of consortium, totaled $13.2 million. But they also found that Plasencia shared some fault, 27.5 percent, making the total award to the family $9.6 million.
Nicholson explained that American Airlines had argued at trial Plasencia told a flight attendant and pilot prior to takeoff that he did not want to deplane.
“He declined because, and this is common with TIAs, he didn’t think anything was wrong,” Nicholson said, adding his client had “snapped out of” the initial effects of the medical episode by the time a flight attendant answered his wife’s call.
Nicholson characterized some other arguments American Airlines made to the jury as “appalling.”
“They said, ‘Well, he had diabetes and hypertension, and we didn’t cause that and didn’t cause the stroke, so it can’t be our fault,’” he said. “And that argument we found pretty offensive, because millions of passengers fly every day on international flights. … Every single person that gets on an aircraft has a medical history, and it just cannot be that carriers like American Airlines act like insurance companies 20 years ago and say, ‘You’ve got a preexisting condition? Not our problem.’”
“They had a responsibility to follow the rules, and when a passenger has a medical crisis, they’ve got to act.”
Plasencia is also represented by Hannah M. Crowe of Burns Charest and Sanjiv N. Singh of San Mateo, California.
Nicholson said Burns Charest got involved in the case because the firm had been working with Singh representing some family members of 737 Max crashes pro bono in opposing the government’s settlement and nonprosecution agreement with Boeing.
American Airlines is represented by Ivy Nowinski, David Harrington and William Wolff of Condon & Forsyth.
The case number is 5:23-cv-05607.