American Airlines Sued Over Seating Arrangement

Michael Anthony Taylor, 67, filed a lawsuit against the airline, claiming his awkward position "crouching, kneeling, bracing or standing" worsened his scoliosis and caused injuries, according to NBC News.

"I don’t hold any malice towards the people in the seats next to me – they’d paid for a ticket too," Taylor told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. "The airline could have put me in a crew seat or moved people around, but they did nothing."

Taylor said being squeezed between the two passengers worsened his scoliosis, injured his back and even left him with bruises on his neck.

The lawsuit comes more than a year after the flight occurred, according to NBC News.

If Taylor wins the case, it could force the airline to make the seating in its economy class more comfortable for travelers, according to Taylor’s lawyer.

"If Michael is successful, this throws open the doors to potentially a large amount of cases against airlines and how they’ve designed their seating and how they seat passengers," Thomas Janson of Shine Lawyers told the Daily Telegraph.

"There will be a huge outcry against the way airlines furnish their cabins, particularly in economy," Janson added.

An American Airlines spokesperson told the Daily Telegraph: "We just received the lawsuit and we are reviewing the allegations."

The lawsuit comes a year after an Italian lawyer filed a similar suit against Emirates Airlines after having to sit next to an obese man on a nine-hour flight.

"For nine hours, I had to stand in the aisle, sit on seats reserved for the cabin crew when they were free, and in the final phase of flight resign myself to suffer the ‘spillover’ of the passenger at my side," the lawyer who filed that suit said, according to the Telegraph.

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