American Airlines has abandoned plans to blame a nine-year-old girl for being secretly videotaped while using an airplane bathroom, a legal tactic the company raised after federal authorities said a flight attendant taped the girl and four other children on American flights.
Responding to a lawsuit filed in a Texas state court by the girl’s family, the airline initially said in court papers that it could not be held responsible for the illegal videotaping allegedly done by former flight attendant Estes Carter Thompson III.
Any damages she suffered, the airlines wrote, was “proximately caused by Plaintiff’s own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiff’s use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device,” lawyers for the airline wrote in Texas court papers.
In a statement released Wednesday, the airlines disavowed the legal argument.
“Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing. The included defense is not representative of our airline and we have directed it be amended [Wednesday] morning,” the airline said in a statement. “We do not believe this child is at fault and we take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously.”
But the attorney for the girl’s family, Paul T. Llewellyn, said Wednesday he plans to hold the company’s feet to the fire during the ensuing litigation.
“It appears that they will no longer be pointing the finger at the nine-year-old girl,’’ said the San Francisco based Llewellyn in a phone interview. “But in my view, the bell cannot be unrung. They’ve adopted this legal strategy and its only as a result of the media attention that they are trying to backtrack.”
He also said that when he first read the defense filing he was “outraged, disgusted…I cannot see a world where you would stand up at trial and point the finger at a nine-year-old…In my view this has no legal merit whatsoever. And I’m shocked that American Airlines would even put forward such a defense.”
He said the girl and her family were flying to Los Angeles in January 2023 and they had no idea their daughter was allegedly targeted by Thompson until they were contacted earlier this year by FBI agents who had discovered the images while examining Thompson’s cellphone.
“It’s been shocking what happened. And of course this will be hanging over her for the rest of her life,” he said.
Llewellyn also represents the family of a 14-year-old girl who Thompson allegedly videotaped while she was flying to Boston from North Carolina last year. The teenager, however, spotted a camera Thompson had allegedly installed in the bathroom, and immediately alerted her parents.
The family’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in North Carolina, triggered a criminal investigation. Thompson made his initial appearance in US District Court in Boston Monday where he pleaded not guilty to federal indictments charging him with possessing child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor.
Thompson, 36, and a resident of Charlotte, is in federal custody pending trial.
John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.