(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the Transportation Security Administration doesn’t have legal immunity to rape airline passengers—overturning a lower court decision that had squashed a sexual assault lawsuit against the TSA.
The 9th Circuit’s Tuesday decision stems from an incident on June 30, 2019, when a TSA officer allegedly sexually assaulted Michele Leuthauser at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
“Leuthauser was directed to stand on a floor mat with footprints painted on it to show where to place her feet. Leuthauser alleges that [the TSA officer] directed her to spread her legs far more widely than the footprints indicated,” the 9th Circuit said in its decision, recounting the facts of the case.
“[The TSA officer] then conducted a pat-down during which [the officer] slid her hands along the inside of Leuthauser’s thighs, touched her vulva and clitoris with the front of her fingers, and digitally penetrated her vagina. She asserts that she suffered symptoms of emotional distress, including shortness of breath, uncontrollable shaking, and nausea.”
Leuthauser sued the TSA and the officer over the matter, but a lower court tossed out her lawsuit.
A judge ruled that TSA officers are not “investigative or law enforcement officers” under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and therefore have sovereign immunity and can’t be sued in federal court.
The 9th Circuit overturned that decision Tuesday, ruling that federal law “plainly provides that [TSA officers] are officers of the United States empowered by law to execute searches for violations of Federal law.”
“We hold that TSOs fall within the ordinary meaning of the proviso’s definition of investigative or law enforcement officers,” the appeals court said. “Therefore, sovereign immunity does not bar Leuthauser’s claims for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Privacy advocates have celebrated the 9th Circuit’s decision as a victory that will help prevent TSA abuse.
“The case decided today by the 9th Circuit will now return to the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas for much-belated consideration of the claim against the TSA and its officers,” said Ed Hasbrouck, a consultant to the nonprofit Identity Project.
“Kudos to Jonathan Corbett, who has represented the plaintiffs in each of these cases,” Hasbrouck added.
“Coals for Christmas to the TSA for continuing to argue for impunity for its staff to one Circuit Court after another, despite the growing weight of precedent against the agency and, perhaps more importantly, the moral repugnance of arguing that any agents of the government should be entitled to assault or rape members of the public with impunity.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
