A U.S. district judge in Dallas intends to award final judgment in favor of a political conservative activist group for nominal damages of one cent and reasonable costs and lawyers’ fees to end litigation over a defunct Southwest Airlines charitable program that offered free flights to low-income Hispanic students.
Senior U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater issued an order sua sponte Wednesday alerting lawyers for American Alliance for Equal Rights and Southwest Airlines of his intention to forego the merits of the case and enter final judgment on his own accord because the Dallas-based airline has “unconditionally surrendered to the entry of judgment for complete relief” in AAER’s favor. The judge gave both parties 14 days to file an opposition.
Last month, lawyers for Southwest asked the judge to enter a judgment ordering the airline to pay one cent — the amount in damages the AAER had sought — and reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees to end the litigation. Southwest ended the program called “¡Lánzate!” — meaning “Take off!” — after AAER sued Southwest on behalf of a white student and an Asian student who claimed they were illegally denied the program’s benefits.
The judge’s 10-page opinion and order comes one day after Edward Blum’s AAER accused Southwest of trying to sidestep liability for violating federal discrimination law and urging the judge to decide the case on its merits in a brief filed Tuesday.
But the judge wrote in his opinion Wednesday that Southwest represented an “unconditional surrender to all of the relief that Alliance could recover if it prevailed on the merits.”
“Forgoing the merits and entering final judgment sua sponte in Alliance’s favor for nominal damages of $0.01 and reasonable costs and attorney’s fees is an appropriate exercise of inherent authority because Southwest has unconditionally surrendered, and the entry of such judgment would grant Alliance total victory,” the judge wrote.
Waiting for a decision on the merits would mean the litigation would drag on, Fitzwater wrote, “potentially at great cost, through discovery, motion practice, and (possibly) trial” and borne by the parties, the court and other litigants “from whom the court’s limited resources are diverted.”
“And this occurs despite the fact that the plaintiff is not entitled to a decision on the merits,” the judge wrote.
The case against Southwest Airlines is American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Southwest Airlines, Northern District of Texas, Case No. 3:24-CV-1209.
The AAER is represented by Cameron T. Norris, Thomas R. McCarthy, Steven D. Begakis and R. Gabriel Anderson of Consovoy McCarthy and Adam K. Mortara of Lawfair.
Southwest Airlines is represented by Tristan Morales, Kimberly Williams and Anton Metlitsky of O’Melveny & Myers.