The lawsuit alleges that a Delta Air Lines employee falsely suspected a father of trafficking his 13-year-old daughter during a 2019 flight.
An Arkansas woman is suing Delta Air Lines and its subsidiary Endeavor Air for $2.35 million after her father accused her of trafficking her minor on a flight in 2019, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
USA TODAY has reached out to Delta Air Lines and the family’s attorney.
According to the complaint, plaintiff Madison Cupp was flying from Atlanta to Newport News, Virginia, with her parents and maternal grandparents in December 2019 when the plane encountered turbulence.
“Cupchan, who was 13 years old at the time, became frightened by the turbulence and began crying. Her father, Nicholas Cupp, sat next to her and comforted her,” the lawsuit states, adding, “Plaintiff was not harmed or abused in any way by his actions.”
The complaint alleges that the flight attendant “erroneously and recklessly concluded that Nicholas Cupp was trafficking her daughter” and reported that he was touching her “inappropriately.” The report was relayed to the Delta Air Lines station manager in Newport News, who called police “without making the slightest effort to get to the bottom of the matter.”
The suit says armed law enforcement officers met the family at the airport upon their arrival, “physically separated Plaintiff from his parents without warning,” detained the father for questioning, and “interrogated” them before determining that “there was no probable cause to charge or arrest Nicholas Cupp.”
Cupps accused Delta and Endeavor of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harm to Madison, and false imprisonment. According to the lawsuit, Madison suffered from abdominal pain, vomiting, and severe psychological distress after the incident, including “fear of interacting with her father in public if he were wrongly accused again.”
An earlier lawsuit filed by her father spent years in court until the Virginia Supreme Court ruled this spring that the airline was not immune from prosecution and could proceed.
Madison filed a separate lawsuit in December seeking a jury trial. Delta recently filed a motion to dismiss on June 3.
This article has been updated to update the headline.
